Identity Theft Speaker Expert on National Television 2/24/09 M&J Show

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Robert is in NYC Tues AM on the Morning Show with Mike and Juliet “M&J Investigates” work at home scams. http://www.mandjshow.com/about-the-show.

Here are past shows:
Holiday Scams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q22ifUbTbiY

Cyber Monday Scams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixn26vVTfns

More here: http://www.youtube.com/user/stungundotcom

Show times and listings http://www.mandjshow.com/about-the-show/

Homepage www.IDTheftsecurity.com

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Phishing Attacks Rise Dramatically in 2008

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert – Speaker

Stupid people get hooked by phishers. You have to be a complete idiot to get sucked into a scam email that has typos making requests that are geared toward naïve simple minded pea brain fools. Right? Yes? No? So why have phishing attacks risen dramatically in 2008? That’s 66% higher than in 2007.

Have we gotten dumber or are the attackers getting smarter?

RSA concluded that phishing attacks rose to an unprecedented 15,002 in April of 2008. Millions of people in mainly english speaking nations receiving ruse after ruse. 68% of US bank brands attacked. Less than 7% UK brands experiencing less than attacks.

However the UK takes the title for the most exploits as the most phished country in the world equating to 40% of the 135,426 cases detected by RSA.

This seems to be due to the UKs system allowing fraudulent transfers fast enough “real-time” to avoid detection. Criminals like real time fast cash.

Much of the success of phishers is that they are in fact getting smarter using “flax flux” attacks. *Fast flux is a technique used by botnets to hide phishing and malware delivery sites behind an ever-changing network of compromised hosts acting as proxies. It can also refer to the combination of peer-to-peer networking, distributed command and control, web-based load balancing and proxy redirection used to make malware networks more resistant to discovery and counter-measures. *Thank you Wikipedia.

Tonight I spent 2 hours on the phone in a webinar with a startup reviewing a fully functional toolbar that makes 54 checks to determine the validity of a website checking for phishing, pharming etc. All any bank needs to do is adopt the technology and require their clients to adopt it in the sign-in process. In most cases problems solved.

And do you know what we labored over in this call? How to get all the banks clients to install a simple toolbar that would protect them and the bank.

Why is this so difficult?

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert discussing Scambaiter in video Here

Nuclear Weapons, CyberSecurity and an Unlocked Door.

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert Speaker www.IDTheftSecurity.com

What happens when you have an unlocked door at the home of and employee at the top U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory? How about 3 stolen computers with yet to be disclosed data, that was said to be non-classified. We hope. Were the computers stolen to be resold for crack? Or for nuclear weapons secrets? We may never know. Or we may find out the hard way.

At the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Santa Fe New Mexico dozens more (67 total) systems are currently listed as missing. Officials are conducting a full review of the lab’s policies and procedures governing the use of official computers at employees’ homes.

Situations like this are common in every industry with every conceivable form of data. We just wish it wasn’t data from a nuclear weapons facility.

Its important to point out that the facility has as many as 40,000 computers including desktops, laptops, PDAs, printers and so on. Do the math, less than a .25 percent lost or stolen. The lab has been documented at a better than 99.5 accountability rate.

We know there is no such thing as 100% security whether protecting from hardware or data thieves. Security is an ongoing, never ending, consistent, on your toes, don’t let your guard down, vigilant process.

And its not just criminal hackers causing big problems, lowly burglars looking for their next bag of dope stole a laptop computer from the home of a government employee containing 26.5 million Social Security Numbers, a US primary identifier. This $500 laptop cost millions.

Can you say your organization has a 99.5% success rate?

What policies do you have in place to foster a security minded culture? Here are just a few bullets as examples for you to add too.

# Cover all organizational systems used for processing, storing or transmitting personal information.

# Security risks faced assessed in the development of the policy

# Cost-effective measures devised to reduce the risks to acceptable levels

# Monitored and periodically reviewed.

# Staff and management made aware of the protective security policies and how to implement them.

Robert Siciliano discussing another hack Here

Bank Robberies Spike, Blame The Economy?

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Robert Siciliano

Often I’m called to provide perspective on breaking news as it relates to personal security, violence and fraud. Tonight it was bank robbery. In Boston a white male suspect in his 20’s has robbed at least 4 banks since Feb. 3rd and two of those were done today within a few miles of each other.

In the first, he went up to a teller who was in training, startled, she said she did not have any money in the drawer and he left the bank without trying. Obviously he did not have an alternative plan.

Each time he has passed a note demanding money and implies a weapon, but no weapon is shown.

The local police department talked to the media about how more and more suspects are desperate because of the economy and not experienced bank robbers. They also said that a lot of them don’t care about the survelliance cameras or the jail time that they might face if caught. The FBI and local police departments are investigating these robberies.

In New York City Bank robberies have risen 54 percent compared with last year, with criminals committing more than 430 in the past year, according to the NYPD.

New Yorks Police commissioner was quoted saying “They’ve turned banks into cash machines”

Numerous studies certainly show crimes tends to rise when times are tough. Right now its pretty tough and getting uglier for many. But rob a bank? I know plenty of people who have hit hard times. I can’t think of one who had the epiphany “Today I’ll rob a bank”.

I saw a story recently about a guy who walked out of a grocery store and stole a full a cart of food to feed his family and was caught. He was quoted saying “it was worth the risk to feed my family”.

Illegal, wrong, understandable.

What’s more likely is people who are robbing banks have committed crimes before. Bank robbery is a desperate and aggressive act. Chances are this individual is like most, suffering from addiction, heroin, Oxy-contin, and is desperate for his next hit. People who rob banks have an equal amount of desperation and stupidity as they do huge balls.

Banks Robbers aren’t Robert De Niro in Heat or Jim Carey in Dick and Jane

I think it’s safe to say that while the economy may have people all jittery, you won’t see many executives from failed investment firms who were laid off go and rob a bank. This person hasn’t robbed four banks to pay his cable bill. He’s a mess.

These arent well thought out, rational, previously employed people. These are people who have been involved in criminal acts their whole lives and this is the next step for them.

I would gather that someone is doing a study somewhere and will conclude that in-fact there is a spike in robberies during hard times. We see the same thing around the holidays. People are emotional, they feel pressure and go a bit nutty.

Why not every bank on earth is equipped with an access control vestibule so criminals are prevented from entering with guns or trapped like this idiot

Robert Siciliano discussing bank robbers motivations Here

Quarter Million Dollar Bounty for Criminal Hacker

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker and Expert

In a Microsoft press release a global bounty has been offered for the arrest and prosecution of whoever has created and released the “conficker” virus.

Conficker was released in the last quarter of 2008 and has infected a wide estimate of 2 million to 10 million PCs. After issuing patches, Microsoft estimates approximately 3 million PCs globally are still compromised.

However none of the PCs infected with the conficker are displaying any of the characteristics generally exhibited by the recent spate of viruses offering a remote control component and often used to host spoofed websites and other malicious fraud related activities.

Although, this virus is designed to constantly ping some 250 different domains that were most likely controlled by the criminal hackers that created it. The virus acts like any software calling home looking for an update, checking time/dates stamps and what version is running.

It is widely believed that conficker is waiting for its next set of updates to unleash the endgame its writers had in mind. BRILLIANT!

Many who study conficker as it phones home have been monitoring the 250 domains looking for the next “update”.

Each of these top level domains include .com, .net and .org. All of which fall under Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), who heads up the domain registration industry. ICANNs rules prohibit such reserving of domains. ICANN then worked with registrars in heading off any future registration of conficker sought domains.

What has been out of the control of ICANN has been .ws and .cn (China) based domains and due to the ferocity of conficker and negocitions by ICANN, China and other global registrars have agreed to make it difficult for conficker to continue to control its 250 base domains or seek others along the string.

What we are seeing here is a global effort by international agency’s, security professionals from around the world and Microsoft working together to defeat an unknown attacker, that if left un-matched, could infect a significant portion of the worlds computers.

This story is not over.

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert-Speaker video discussing rise in identity theft Here

Preventing Inside Jobs, Keeping Inside Hackers – Out

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker and Expert

Are you familiar with a “Logic Bomb”? This is a brilliant piece of code, a virus, designed for destruction. The goal of a logic bomb is to disable existing systems that may monitor data, protect it, back it up or access it. A logic bomb is designed to multiply like any virus and spread throughout a network multiplying its effects.

In a Wall Street Journal story an example provided, depicts an employee at Fannie Mae, knowing he is about to be fired commits an act of workplace violence by installing a logic bomb set to detonate almost 3 months after his departure. The detonation would have taken the organization off line for almost a week and cost millions and millions of dollars.

In this true crime story, an observant programmer, still employed noticed the code and disabled it before the damage could be done.

Think for a moment about your home/flat/apartment and how you would break in if you lost your keys. And if a burglar knew what you knew about where you hide and store your stuff. How much damage could he do, knowing what you know? Insiders pose the same problem. They know the ins and outs of all systems in place and can wreak havoc on your operation while they are employed and sometimes after they are let go.

The problems begin when we put people in a trusted place. They are granted access because that’s their job to perform certain duties and they are granted carte blanche access. Ultimately this is a people problem and needs to be addressed that way.

1. Limited Sources; only grant access to a few trusted sources. Minimize the amount of staff that has access to whatever systems in place.

2. Due Diligence; in the information age, our lives are an open book. Background checks from information brokers are very necessary. Not doing a background check increases your liability. A person previously convicted of a crime just might do it again.

3. Limit Access; even a good apple eventually can go bad. By restricting the access to even those who are in a trusted position, in the event they turn sour, they can only do limited damage.

4. Defense in Depth; audit, audit, audit. This is all about checks and balances. Separation of powers. Multiple layers of authorization. We’ve all watched the movie where in order to launch the missile there were 2 keys held by 2 people, who pressed 2 buttons in order for the missile to launch. Put systems in place that facilitate someone always watching over someone’s shoulder. This way the bad apple can’t hide or execute their malicious intent.

5. Prosecute the Guilty; in the event of a breach of trust, make an example of the person that others won’t forget. Public hangings set a strong deterrent.

It is human nature to trust each other. We are raised to be civil towards one another and to respect those in authoritative positions. It takes a significant amount of trust in your fellow human being to drive down the street while cars are heading toward you only separated by a thin painted line. Without trust we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

This explains why we are completely beside ourselves when someone who we have bestowed our faith and trust in deceives us. A week doesn’t go by where we read of the local girls team soccor coach was preying upon his underage team members. And we are still shocked.

Throughout our lives, and especially lately, we have observed government officials, CEOs from major corporations down to front line staff and many others who have been put in positions of trust, who ultimately deceived. Putting someone in a trusted position, without checks and balances can lead to utter destruction, and is liable and irresponsible.

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker and Expert; video discussing background checks

Unlucky in Love? Feb. 13th is Your Lucky Day!

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Unlucky in Love? Feb. 13th is Your Lucky Day!

Hi,
Lisa Daily, friend and colleage wrote a great book “How to Date Like a Grown-Up: Everything You Need to Know to Get Out There, Get Lucky, or Even Get Married in Your 40s, 50s and Beyond” and featured me and my tips on safe dating both online and off.

Buy it!

If you’ve been unlucky in love (or just not lucky enough). Friday, February 13th will be your lucky day.

Why? If you buy How to Date Like a Grown-Up: Everything You Need to Know to Get Out There, Get Lucky, or Even Get Married in Your 40s, 50s and Beyond (written by my friend, bestselling author Lisa Daily) today at Amazon.com, you’ll get more than $800 worth of free bonus gifts.

How’s that for a Valentine’s Day present?

How to Date Like a Grown-Up offers realistic, counterintuitive advice that will help you finally find the relationship you deserve, including: where and how to meet better men, 5 easy tips to chat up any stranger, what you may be doing to make yourself a magnet for losers, little-known secrets to dramatically improve your dating odds, and the one simple thing you can do in the bedroom to make a man speed up his marriage proposal. (It’s not what you think!)

For today only, you can get an online goodie bag worth $800 when you purchase How To Date Like a Grown-Up: Everything You Need To Know To Get Out There, Get Lucky, or Even Get Married in Your 40s, 50s and Beyond. (It’s about $12 at www.Amazon.com)

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Lisa Daily interviews Robert Siciliano of www.IDTheftSecurity.com about the key things every woman must know to protect herself from online predators.

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Tech Executives Are The New Sexy

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert – Speaker

Not to long ago the CIO was a pocket protected, sugared up, soda pop drinking, potato chip eating, caffeinated, non sociable…..well….geek. Not anymore. But you knew that. Serious, Geek is getting even more sexy, stripper pole sexy. A familiar story, a colleague of mine built a tech startup, it has gone from $4 million to $175 million in 3 years. He tells me behemoth tech companies literally send scantily clad hotties to his office weekly, making numerous offers he has to refuse. Hes married, and, he has a board of directors that won’t sell.

Companies not so flush with cash and armed with solutions that actually work, are holding back and not selling out because they are undervalued due to the economic crisis. What compounds their pain is retailers and others who need their technology aren’t buying. It astonishes me that with the amount of data beaches over the past year alone, companies aren’t making the necessary investments.

I see struggling companies offering technologies including identity theft protection, data security that prevents data breaches, defending against criminal hackers from the inside and out, biometric solutions and credit card fraud prevention using multi-factor authentication, all solutions yet to be widely implemented. Solutions that work!

This kind of cost cutting has put the attention on the CIO. Budget cuts have put the CIO front and center.

CIO’s are benefiting big time from the current climate. Sure, many have a much bigger workload, but the chief information officer has become an attractive and strategic financial asset.

The CIO is now very in demand. High tech jobs are some of the most recession proof. While tech is their “job”, they have become go-to-gurus for security, and now for corporate strategy and long term company objectives.

Cost cutting often spurs innovation. Who better to turn to than the CIO who knows what works, and, deals with whiny co-workers when stuff doesn’t work. These are people that generally know what goes on in every nook, cranny and crawl space of the facility and know what is a waste and what streamlines productivity.

If you’re not already, tap your CIO for strategic initiatives and they may have something sexy to say.

Great article by Jon Fortt Here

Completely unrelated distraction of a video of credit card skimming Here

Identity Theft Expert and MyLaptopGPS: Computer Security Breaches Reported within Days of Each Other Involve Nearly 40,000 Unique Data Records

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(BOSTON, Mass. – Feb. 13, 2009 – IDTheftSecurity.com) News this past week of data breaches at just two healthcare organizations apparently involved nearly 40,000 unique data records. One was the theft of a laptop computer hospital near Dallas, Texas. Widely televised and quoted personal security and identity theft expert Robert Siciliano advised healthcare organizations to avoid such incidents by investing in laptop tracking and data retrieval technology from MyLaptopGPS.

"Depending on the data stored on it, a laptop computer is worth much more than what the machine costs to purchase," said Siciliano. "When a laptop is stolen, the idea that it is in fact worth the cost of the data on it becomes painfully clear. On average, that cost is nearly $170,000. But laptop tracking security can cost as little as a miniscule fraction of this. Smart organizations opt for the latter."

CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com and a member of the Bank Fraud & IT Security Report‘s editorial board, Siciliano leads Fortune 500 companies and their clients through presentations that explore security solutions for businesses and individuals. Author of "The Safety Minute: 01" and a longtime identity theft speaker, he has discussed data security and consumer protection on CNBC, NBC’s "Today Show," FOX News Network, and elsewhere.

Healthcare organizations suffered security breaches this past week that possibly exposed thousands of employees’ unique data records to thieves.

  • San Ramon, Calif. police uncovered a computer file containing sensitive, identifying data on nearly 30,000 employees of the Oakland, Calif.–based HMO Kaiser Permanente.
  • A laptop computer stolen from Parkland Memorial Hospital, near Dallas, Texas, contained names, birthdates and Social Security numbers on 9,300 employees, according to a Feb. 9th report in The Dallas Morning News, which went on to note that the mobile computing device was valued at $1,862.

"A laptop computer’s worth is much more than the cost of its hardware and software," said MyLaptopGPS’ chief technology officer, Dan Yost, who invited readers to visit the MyLaptopGPS blog. "Each unique data record is worth to the person it identifies much more, and when thousands upon thousands of such records reside on one mobile computing device’s hard drive, that cost rises ever upward. The smart thing to do is to make sure the machine is never lost."

The theft rate for laptop computers equipped with MyLaptopGPS is just 0.4 percent, or 32 times lower than the average. Additionally, Yost pointed to SafeRegistry™, a comprehensive system from MyLaptopGPS for inventorying entire fleets of mobile computers, as well as a full line of highly renowned SafeTags™, which are police-traceable property tags designed to secure iPods™, cell phones, BlackBerry™ devices and other mobile property.

Yost’s expertise has been featured twice in CXO Europe. Furthermore, in December of 2008, he and Siciliano co-delivered a presentation titled "Information in the Modern Age: Maintaining Privacy in an Era of Medical Record Identity Theft" at the 4th Annual World Healthcare Innovation & Technology Congress in Washington, D.C., where Former U.S. Congressman Newt Gingrich delivered the keynote address.

Readers who belong to LinkedIn® are encouraged to join the MyLaptopGPS group there. Featured in Inc. Magazine and TechRepublic, MyLaptopGPS maintains the Realtime Estimated Damage Index (REDI™), a running tally of highly publicized laptop and desktop computer thefts and losses and these losses’ associated costs. A log of these high-profile laptop thefts is available at MyLaptopGPS’ website.

Readers may download a demo of MyLaptopGPS. They also have the opportunity to read one of two reports tailored to the type of organization they run.

MyLaptopGPS combines Internet-based GPS tracking with other functionalities to secure mobile computing devices. A user launches MyLaptopGPS’ features remotely, protecting data even while the machine is in a criminal’s hands. Once connected to the Internet, the software silently retrieves and then deletes files from machines as it tracks the stolen or missing hardware — at once returning the data to its rightful owner and removing it from the lost mobile computing device.

The YouTube video below shows Siciliano on a local FOX News affiliate discussing the importance of securing mobile computing devices on college campuses, where laptop theft can run rampant. To learn more about identity theft, a major concern for anyone who’s lost a laptop computer or other mobile computing device to thieves, readers may go to video of Siciliano at VideoJug.

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About MyLaptopGPS

Celebrating 25 years in business, Tri-8, Inc. (DBA MyLaptopGPS.com) has specialized in complete system integration since its founding in 1984. From real-time electronic payment processing software to renowned mid-market ERP implementations, the executive team at MyLaptopGPS has been serving leading enterprises and implementing world-class data systems that simply work. With MyLaptopGPS™, Tri-8, Inc. brings a level of expertise, dedication, knowledge and service that is unmatched. MyLaptopGPS™’s rock-solid performance, security, and reliability flow directly from the company’s commitment to top-notch software products and services.

About IDTheftSecurity.com

Identity theft affects us all, and Robert Siciliano, CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com and member of the Bank Fraud & IT Security Report‘s editorial board, makes it his mission to educate Fortune 500 companies and their clients. A leader of personal safety and security seminars nationwide, Siciliano has been featured on "The Today Show," CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, "FOX News," "The Suze Orman Show," "The Montel Williams Show," "Maury Povich," "Sally Jesse Raphael," "The Howard Stern Show," and "Inside Edition." Numerous magazines, print news outlets, and wire services have turned to him, as well, for expert commentary on personal security and identity theft. These include Forbes, USA Today, Entrepreneur, Woman’s Day, Mademoiselle, Good Housekeeping, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, United Press International, Reuters, and others. For more information, visit Siciliano’s Web site, blog, and YouTube page.

The media are encouraged to get in touch with any of the following individuals:

John Dunivan
MyLaptopGPS Media Relations
PHONE: (405) 747-6654 (direct line)
jd@MyLaptopGPS.com
www.MyLaptopGPS.com

Robert Siciliano, Personal Security Expert
CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com
PHONE: 888-SICILIANO (742-4542)
FAX: 877-2-FAX-NOW (232-9669)
Robert@IDTheftSecurity.com
www.idtheftsecurity.com

Brent Skinner
President & CEO of STETrevisions
PHONE: 617-875-4859
FAX: 866-663-6557
BrentSkinner@STETrevisions.com
http://www.STETrevisions.com
http://www.brentskinner.blogspot.com

The Five Biggest Security Threats Facing Businesses Today

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Robert Siciliano 2/12/2

Millennials, the next generation of technology savvy workers are coming to a cubicle near you. They are a generation of technogeeks that dont know they are techno or geeks. I had a rattle. They had a PS2.

This generation knows enough to fix it and enough to break it. They are the best thing and the worst thing to happen to IT administrators. They are armed with netbooks, iphones and their own routers they plug into your network. They access Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and countless other sites that should not be accessible from a corporate network.

Yes, you can control what they do on-site. But it gets more complicated when they are commuting virtually. Using their PCs to log into your network becomes a battle of the techies (your IT guy vs them) to see who wins. They dont want restrictions, they want speed and will do their best to defeat whatever technology IT has in place.

Poison Pharms; is the redirect of your domain of your companies website, it’s the equivalent of someone rerouting your phone lines to a boiler room operation across the street and posing as your business.

Storm Clouds; as many forgo software and adopt software as a service, the potential for data lost or stolen in the cloud rises. The information is virtual, its overseas, it goes through another router you dont control.

Credit Crunch; recent studies show on average companies will allocate ONE more full percentage point of their annual budget into IT security. ONE! Criminals are spending lots more and they are investing whatever they need to get into your networks and they are using your data and turning it into money to do it.

Offshoring; countries in the game only a short time have exploded with growth in their IT sectors. While most have invested heavily in their infrastructures and in security, the pace of growth for some has outpaced security.

Brilliant article by Nick Heath Here

Video of hackers caught Here

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert and Speaker