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Holiday Security Tips: On the sixth day of Christmas, the experts gave to me, 6 safe celebrations
Isn’t it unfortunate that holiday parties, at home or at work, are a major source of data theft? Crafty thieves are searching for smartphones, iPads, financial documents, checkbooks, credit and debit cards, laptops, client lists, thumb drives, files, mail, purses, wallets and all other sources of identity. The data on digital devices is a veritable goldmine equal to making off with the Roast Beast.
Solution: During parties, lock identity behind closed doors (and away from acquaintances)
Ignore the voice of denial (it sounds like Boris Karloff) insisting that your friends, family, co-workers, vendors, customers and colleagues wouldn’t possibly steal from you. Cindy Lou Who didn’t suspect the kindly “Santie Claus” either! I hear hundreds of stories every year after my speaking engagements with the same sad ending: the victim knows the thief! Don’t assume the worst about your guests; just don’t assume anything and protect yourself preventatively.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Holiday Party IdentityTheft", “Holiday ID Theft”, “Online scams”, “Prevent Identity Theft”, “Preventing Identity Theft”, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday, Holiday Identity Theft, Holiday Scams, holiday security tips, Holiday Shopping, John Sileo, Sileo
Holiday Security Tips: On the fifth day of Christmas, the experts gave to me, 5 Facebook fixes
In general, we share too much information on social media sites. During the holidays, we are positively intoxicated with the giving spirit! Without thinking, we share our holiday travel plans, click on seemingly charitable links or post pictures of a fun night out. And when you share with friends on Facebook, you are sharing with their friends and ultimately, most of the literate world. The problem is, some of those people aren’t really friends and only want to separate you from your holiday dollars.
Solution: Apply these five fixes to ALL of your social sharing (not just Facebook)
- Customize your privacy settings. Sixty percent of social network users are unaware that their default privacy settings let others into most of their personal information. Facebook does a decent job of explaining how to lock your privacy down(https://www.facebook.com/help/privacy) but you must spend at least 90 minutes going over the settings to properly protect yourself.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: “Holiday ID Theft”, “Online scams”, “Prevent Identity Theft”, “Preventing Identity Theft”, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Facebook, Facebook Privacy Settings, holiday, Holiday Identity Theft, Holiday Scams, holiday security tips, Holiday Shopping, John Sileo, Sileo, twitter privacy
Holiday Security Tips: On the fourth day of Christmas, the experts gave to me, 4 pay solutions!
True or False?
When you use a debit card, funds are more secure because they are drawn directly from your bank.
False. While it’s true that funds are drawn directly from your bank, it actually makes it harder to get the money reimbursed while the issue is being resolved if fraud does occur.
You can receive a reimbursement for debit card fraud up to a year later.
False. Debit cards generally only reimburse fraudulent purchases if you catch them within 60 days.
It is safer to use a credit card than a debit card.
True. When you use a credit card, nothing is withdrawn from your bank account immediately. Pending transactions can take several days to clear. In addition, credit cards uniformly give you more protection than debit cards and your maximum liability is capped at $50.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "High security checks", “Holiday ID Theft”, “Online scams”, “Prevent Identity Theft”, “Preventing Identity Theft”, Black Friday, Checks, Credit Cards, Cyber Monday, Debit Cards, holiday, Holiday Identity Theft, Holiday Scams, holiday security tips, Holiday Shopping, John Sileo, Sileo
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaGhGqcv2JoΩ&rel=0]
Just over a year ago I appeared on Fox Business and wrote a blog about a Texas couple who learned their child’s baby monitor had been hacked when the intruder started screaming obscenities through the device. At the time the webcam system itself was found to have some glaring vulnerabilities, which were fixed by a firmware update, but I pointed out that the bottom line is that owners had not taken the necessary steps to secure their device and the onus was ultimately on them.
Now the news has broken about the latest in cyber espionage: a Russian website that is streaming footage from thousands of devices, including baby monitors, bedroom cameras, office surveillance systems and CCTV from gyms, in more than 250 countries, including feeds from 4,591 cameras in the United States. Not only are they streaming the footage, but they are providing the coordinates of where the cameras are located!
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Sileo In the News, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: baby cam, baby camera, cyber espionage, John Sileo, russian hackers, Sileo
Holiday Security Tips: On the third day of Christmas, the experts gave to me, 3 stymied hackers!
Although you may trust the baristas at your local coffee shop to make that perfect Gingerbread Latte, you can’t always trust the person sitting next to you. Hackers can easily tap into Wi-Fi connections at public hot spots to steal your identity information, including credit card and bank account numbers. This can be especially dangerous during the holiday season when “hotspot sniffers” come out of the woodwork using free monitoring apps like Firesheep.
Solution: Stop shopping online using free Wi-Fi hotspots.
If you must shop online while out in public, take the following precautions:
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: “Holiday ID Theft”, “Online scams”, “Prevent Identity Theft”, “Preventing Identity Theft”, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday, Holiday Identity Theft, Holiday Scams, holiday security tips, Holiday Shopping, John Sileo, Sileo
Holiday Security Tips: On the second day of Christmas, the experts gave to me, 2 shopping tips…
Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be here before you can say “Man, I ate a lot of turkey!” Malls, stores, restaurants and cafés are exceptionally busy places during the holidays. This breeds a perfect environment for data thieves to make off with your identity goodies while you shop, dine or relax. It only takes a second to steal a purse from a shopping cart, a briefcase from your car or a smartphone, iPad or laptop from an unattended café table. Solution: Lighten your load and leave excess identity at home.
- Consider taking only your mobile phone, driver’s license and one or two credit cards with you shopping to minimize the number of identity storage devices you might misplace. If you can fit the items in your pockets, your security increases. If you must have a purse, use one that zips and hangs in front of you, or consider using a backpack that stays on you at all times.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: “Holiday ID Theft”, “Online scams”, “Prevent Identity Theft”, “Preventing Identity Theft”, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday, Holiday Identity Theft, Holiday Scams, holiday security tips, Holiday Shopping, John Sileo, Sileo
Holiday Security Tips: On the first day of Christmas, my expert gave to me, the keys to secure my privacy.
If I could give the world a gift this holiday season, it would be to make the world a safer place to trust. You deserve to know whether or not you can trust the politicians you elect, the advice you receive from your doctor and whether or not you can entrust your privacy to the websites and businesses you use every day.
Identity theft, cyber stalking, and “big data” surveillance—these byproducts of the information economy make it hard to rest easy. Every day in the news we hear about another scam, another breach of corporate data that victimizes more than 11 million Americans a year. But you don’t have to be a statistic!
Solution: Give yourself a gift by paying attention to prevention.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: “Holiday ID Theft”, “How to Prevent Identity Theft”, “Online scams”, “Prevent Identity Theft”, “Preventing Identity Theft”, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday, Holiday Identity Theft, Holiday Scams, holiday security tips, Holiday Shopping, John Sileo, Sileo
USPS Breach is Latest Security Leakage.
The United States Postal Service ran an ad about how much safer your data is if you use the mail service. Some of the catch phrases include, “A refrigerator has never been hacked. An online virus has never attacked a corkboard.” It goes on to assure you that conducting your daily business using the Postal Service will protect you from the dangers of using modern conveniences. Or not…USPS has been hacked. Were they inviting the attack?
The good news about the USPS breach is that the cyber thieves didn’t appear to get too much volume (less than a million records); the bad news is that it included the gold standard of identity (SSNs):
- Up to 800,000 employees may have had their names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, emergency contacts and other information exposed.
Posted in Cyber Data Security by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "USPS Breach", John Sileo, Sileo
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHD2eWg9Cxk&rel=0]
Android flashlight apps harvesting your data for marketing & cyber crime.
You LOVE that flashlight app you have on your smartphone, right? Whether you’re in that dark restaurant with a size 2.5 font or wanting to share your love at a concert or finding your keys in your purse…you wonder, how did you ever live without it?
Well, it turns out the creators of that wonderful app love it, too, because it has become a way for them to get ahold of your personal data to use or sell.
Android devices seem to be especially vulnerable. Snoopbit studied the top ten Android flashlight apps and discovered that every one of them collects unnecessary user data and accesses areas of the device completely unrelated to the purpose of the app. This includes having the ability to read phone status and identity, view Wi-Fi connections, modify system settings, obtain full network access, and determine your precise location via your phone’s GPS, among other permissions.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: John Sileo, Sileo
