SWATting, Using Technology To Hurt

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Swatting is making prank calls to emergency services. In the field of information security, swatting is an attempt to trick an emergency service (such as a 911 operator) to dispatch an emergency response team, generally a SWAT team. SWAT is (Special Weapons and Tactics).

Caller ID spoofing technologies are used to send law officers on bogus calls along with, social engineering, and phone phreaking techniques combined. 911 systems (including telephony and human operators) have been tricked by calls placed from cities hundreds of miles away.

Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing the telephone network to display a number on the recipient’s caller ID display which is not that of the actual originating caller. Similar to e-mail spoofing which can make it appear that a message came from any e-mail address the sender chooses, caller ID spoofing can make a call appear to have come from any phone number. Most people trust caller ID and are unaware of caller ID spoofing. This is obviously a flawed system ripe for fraud.

MSNBC reports Doug Bates and his wife, Stacey, were in bed around 10 p.m., their 2-year-old daughters asleep in a nearby room. Suddenly they were shaken awake by the wail of police sirens and the rumble of a helicopter above their suburban Southern California home. A criminal must be on the loose, they thought.

Doug Bates got up to lock the doors and grabbed a knife. A beam from a flashlight hit him. He peeked into the backyard. A swarm of police, assault rifles drawn, ordered him out of the house. Bates emerged, frightened and with the knife in his hand, as his wife frantically dialed 911. They were handcuffed and ordered to the ground while officers stormed the house.

They were victims of swatting that exploits a weakness in the way the 911 system handles calls from Internet-based phone services.

Dallas News reports a group of people met on telephone chat lines who harassed people through swatting. They would pick a target and their caller ID information to make it appear they were calling from that person’s house.

They would phone that person’s local police and pretend they were about to go on a killing spree, triggering a SWAT or patrol officer response. The group pulled this scam across the country.

There were some reports of injuries by police storming houses of innocent, unsuspecting people whom police thought were holding hostages at gunpoint.

This is difficult to prevent. Unlisting your home phone number can help. Not having a home phone number and being mobile based is even better. In the off chance you are ever selected to be swatted, the best response is to “show your hands”. Law enforcements concern is a weapon.

While completely unrelated, protect your identity too.

Get a credit freeze. Go to ConsumersUnion.org and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name. This makes your Social Security number useless to a potential identity thief.

Invest in Intelius identity theft protection and prevention. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk. “Disclosures”

Hackers Indicted for Jacking Comcast

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Robert Siciliano identity theft expert

A single hacked email address led to the defacement of Comcast’s homepage. When the hackers called Comcast’s technical contact to let him know that the Comcast homepage and all 200 Comcast domain names were vulnerable, he hung up on them.

It has not been disclosed how the email was compromised, but there are many ways it could be. According to the indictment, the hackers got control of the domain with two phone calls, and an email was sent to the company’s domain registrar, Network Solutions, from a hacked Comcast email account. That gave them entry to the Network Solutions control panel for Comcast’s 200 domains.

The hackers, 19 and 20 at the time, known as Defiant and EBK from a group calling themselves Kryogeniks, scrawled, “KRYOGENIKS EBK and DEFIANT RoXed COMCAST sHouTz To VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven” across Comcast’s homepage after they were rebuffed by Comcast’s technical administrator. Their one mistake was changing the contact information for the Comcast.net domain to Defiant’s email address. Not a smart move from these brilliant hackers.

One method of compromising email accounts is simply going to the “forgot password” section of your email provider’s website and responding to a preselected personal question that you answered when signing up for the account. With a little research, the hacker has a good shot at finding the correct answer. Some of the current questions could be answered using information found on a user’s social networking profile, or through a website like Ancestry.com or Genealogy.com

I suggest that you check out the “forgot password” section on your own web-based email account, to see your current personal question. If it’s easy to answer, or would only require a little research to solve, update the question with one that you create based on opinion, as opposed to fact.

You should also beef up your password. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers. Don’t use consecutive numbers, and never use names of pets, family members, or close friends.

1. Get a credit freeze. Go online now and search “credit freeze” or “security freeze” and go to consumersunion.org and follow the steps for the state you live in. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name. This makes the SSN useless to the thief.

2. Invest in Intelius Identity Theft Protection and Protection. While not all forms of identity theft can be prevented, you can effectively manage your personal identifying information by knowing what’s buzzing out there in regards to YOU.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses hacked email on FOX & Friends.

Money Mules Facilitate Identity Theft and Fraud

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Mules are relatively unaware people who get hooked into a “small business” or employment that is a function of a criminal enterprise. The mules often respond to “help wanted” ads from online job placement sites. Shipping scams are a common tactic criminals use in which they employ mules to receive goods bought with stolen credit card numbers, who then ship to people who buy them in online auctions. The mules in this process are essentially facilitating selling hot goods and money laundering.

An RSA study revealed laptops, iPods, iPhones, Nokia smartphones, digital cameras, Sony PlayStation 3 devices, and DJ equipment were among the items shipped to addresses in Russia and Belarus. RSA estimates that more than $36,000 worth of merchandise was cashed out every month before one scam ended earlier this year.

These scams generally have a virtual store front posing as a shipping company, giving the ruse a legitimate appearance. The efficiency of money mule operations has increased due to the amount of money being generated from data breaches and scams.

There have been dozens of significant data breaches over the past few years, in which millions of credit card numbers have been compromised. Once the data is in the hands of a criminal, they scheme to turn it into cash.

Credit card numbers are often bought and sold by “carders” who sell thousands of cards numbers for pennies each. In many cases when a PIN is present the criminal hacker will use the card number as a debit card at any ATM.

But when turning the data into cash isn’t so easy, they will burn the data to a white card and make in store purchases using mules. That can sometimes be a slow and riskier process. Recently, fake shipping scams have proven to be a profitable model that involves leveraging hundreds of naive people.

The mules are often baited into setting up bank accounts that the criminal controls. These bank accounts will be set up under the name of the mule to avoid detection and generally programmed to transfer money overseas in increments of less than $10,000 to avoid detection.

Most mules end up pulling money out of their pockets to front shipping costs with the promise of a big payoff. In the end the mule is often bilked and ends up with an empty bank account.

These scams hurt a lot of people. The banks and retailers lose because money and goods go out the door. The mules often end up losing thousands. And worse, many organized criminals are associated with terrorists groups who use the money to fund violence.

If the credit card companies and banks would adopt widely available technologies that make the data useless to the thief in the form of effective authentication of the user, then none of this would be happening. But until industry changes what I think is “its evil and selfish ways” then they will keep tossing fuel on the fire.

Generally my readers don’t need to be told the following, but maybe someone you know is naive enough to fall for one of these ruses. So keep in mind, if you are looking for a job online and see “shipping manager” or “buy and sell products on eBay with no inventory or money” or anything involving virtual transactions that involves shipping any thing overseas, then chances are it’s a scam. Also, never be suckered into opening a bank account that you don’t control. That’s just plain dumb.

And, protect your identity.

Invest in Intelius Identity Theft Protection. While not all forms of identity theft can be prevented, you can effectively manage your personal identifying information by knowing what’s buzzing out there in regards to YOU. “Disclosures”

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing money mules on Fox News

I Bought an ATM off Craigslist for $750 w/1000 CC#s on it. Yup.

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

After the Vegas DEFCON ATM debacle where hackers hacked hackers by setting up a fake ATM in front of the facilities security office, I needed to see how stupid easy it was to buy and ATM and just set it up anywhere. So my search began.

I started looking on e-bay and found plenty of new and used ATMs ranging from $500-2500 but quickly determined I didn’t want to pay $300 for shipping. Next was Craigslist, where anyone can rent out an apartment, buy a boat, get an erotic massage and buy an ATM.

I quickly found an ad from a bar north of Boston. They were selling pool tables, Budweiser neon signs and an ATM. I took my hacker with me and met Bob. Bob rented a room above the bar and was doing the deed for the owner. The bar was an old relic that was closing and liquidating its grungy assets. The ATM was sitting right next to the bar covered in 5 years of beer. Thank heavens they were smart enough to cover the keypad in clear plastic. While Bob was explaining the ATMs operation and providing us its history, he farted.

Needless to say I wanted to unbolt this thing as quickly as possible, get out of there and douse myself head to toe in pure alcohol hand sanitizer. After my hacker played with the manual, got it working and determined it was worth the financial risk, we loaded it on my trailer, paid $750 (down from a grand) and brought it home and put it in my garage.

There’s something about having an ATM in your garage that makes for a restless night of sleep, kind of like the next day is Christmas.  The next day, like 5 am, I used an entire bottle of Windex and a whole roll of paper towels and went through 4 pairs of rubber gloves and gave this thing an enema.

My hacker comes over to my garage, manual in hand, all giggly, like hackers sometimes do and says “Watch this”. He punches the master codes to access the machines data on a device called an eprom and hundreds of credit and debit card numbers just start falling all over the floor.

A few days later a TV producer friend of mine came over and we devised an evil plan to scam millions of $$ from unsuspecting suckers and then spend the rest of our lives hopping from island to island and buying a villa in Sicily. But my wife said “NO”.

Here’s the first of a few upcoming videos of what happened next. I’ll share more of my ATM adventures as they occur. There’s a lot more to this story, so stay tuned!I’ll talk more about my ATM adventures as they roll out.

You can protect yourself from these types of scams by paying attention to your statements. Refute unauthorized transactions within 60 days. Consider never using a debit card again, since credit cards are safer. When using an ATM, pay close attention to details, and look for anything that seems out of place. If your card gets stuck in the machine or you notice anything odd about the appearance of the machine, such as wires, double sided tape, error messages, a missing security camera, or the machine seems unusually old and run down, don’t use it. Don’t use just any ATM. Instead, look for ATMs in more secure locations. Cover your pin!!

And invest in McAfee Identity Protection includes proactive identity surveillance to monitor subscribers’ credit and personal information and access to live fraud resolution agents who can help subscribers work through the process of resolving identity theft issues. For additional tips, please visit http://www.counteridentitytheft.com

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker rolling an ATM around on Fox and on Extra with Mario Lopez.

Twitter Phish Identity Theft Scam

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

I’ve been getting the same “direct message” from several of my Twitter followers. Apparently, their accounts have been hacked, because it’s a phishing message that says, “ROFL this you?” and contains a shortened URL.

twitter scam 1

The link leads to a page that resembles Twitter’s log in page. The web address is /videos.twitter.zoltykatalogfirm/. Don’t go there.

twitterscam

Your account will only get hacked if you enter your account information on this spoofed page. Warn your friends. Retweet this.

How to protect yourself:

1. Don’t just click on any link no matter where it’s coming from. Attackers understand a person is more likely to click a link from someone they know, like and trust. If someone direct messages you requesting you click something, their account may be in control of a criminal.
2. Before you click on shortened URLs, find out where they lead by pasting them into a URL lengthening service like TinyURL Decoder or Untiny.
3. Install McAfee anti-virus protection and keep it updated.
4. Change up your passwords. Don’t use the same passwords for social media as you do for financial accounts.
5. Get a credit freeze. Go to ConsumersUnion.org and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name. This makes your Social Security number useless to a potential identity thief.
6. Invest in Intelius identity theft protection and prevention. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk. “Disclosures”

Robert Siciliano identity theft speaker discussing hacked accounts on Fox News

Why is Child Pornography on Your PC?

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Anti-virus protection, critical security patches and a secure wireless connection have always been essential processes on my networks. My main concern has always been to protect my bank account by keeping the bad guy out.

In my presentations, I’ve always stressed the importance of making sure your wireless connection is secured, to prevent skeevy sex offender neighbors or wackos parked in front of your business from surfing for child porn and downloading it to your PC.

Once a predator uses your Internet connection to go to into the bowels of the web, your Internet Protocol address, which is connected to your ISP billing address, is now considered one that is owned by a criminal. If law enforcement happens to be chatting with that person, who’s using your Internet connection to trade lurid child porn, then someone may eventually knock on your door at 3 AM with a battering ram. And in another freakish and relatively new twist, hackers can use a virus to crack your network and gain remote control access, and then store child porn on your hard drive.

An AP investigation found plenty of people who have been victimized in this way. Maybe their PCs were being used as a virtual server, or maybe they were being framed by someone with a vendetta against them, but either way, they had child pornography planted on their computers. Once that porn is discovered by a friend, family member, or computer technician, the victim is arrested.

This is the kind of “breach” that can cost you thousands in legal fees, your marriage, relationships, your job, and your standing in society. In one case, a virus changed the default home page on a man’s PC, and his seven year old daughter discovered it. The guy was arrested and eventually lost custody of his daughter. And you think you’ve got problems.

When you click a link in an email or a pop up advertisement in your browser, you may inadvertently download one of these viruses, which can then visit child pornography websites and download files onto your hard drive.

It also important to point out that most criminal investigators will say that “a virus put the child porn on my PC” is a bunch of hooey and a common defense used by the presumed innocent until proven guilty. Simply don’t give anyone a chance to doubt by doing the following:

Dont be a scumbag child pornographer. Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire.

Make sure your anti virus up to date and set to run automatically.

Update your web browser to the latest version. An out of date web browser is often riddled with holes worms can crawl through.

Update your operating systems critical security patches automatically

Lock down your wireless internet connection with the WPA security protocol

Invest in Intelius Identity Theft Protection. While not all forms of identity theft can be prevented, you can effectively manage your personal identifying information by knowing what’s buzzing out there in regards to YOU. “Disclosures”

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing viruses on Fox News

Smarten Up. Increase Your Information Security Vocabulary

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Years ago (like 20) a friend was graduating from college and moving away and a bunch of friends were throwing a party for this person. Collectively they asked me if I’d write a small speech as a version of “This is your life”.  Stymied as to why they would ask me to do it I asked ”Why me?” My girlfriend at the time said, and I quote “Because you gut good words”. Serious. And my writing and speaking began. Inspiration comes in many forms.

People who generally have to much time on their hands read my posts. Or they simply enjoy my train wreck world view. Anyway there are some fantastic resources that I draw from that help me to break down the complicated issues revolving around how to keep the bad guy from draining your bank account. The following make me look good. (not to insult the following)

READ/CONSUME/RSS:

Finextra Blogs. A vibrant community of finance, IT and security professionals from almost every corner of the planet. A melting pot of diversity that provides a world view on numerous issues. Just don’t piss off Paul.

The Register. A UK based digital diary of all things tech.  John Leyden and Dan Gooden are Register rockstars.

Dark Reading. Isn’t as dark as it sounds. They hit on every possible security issue and are well researched. Kelly Jackson Higgins (is tireless) and John Sawyer & Graham Cluley provide great information. Tim Wilson is a must must must read.

COMPUTERWORLD Provides the most detailed exhaustive data of any source. Articles are deep and informative and keep you tuned to industry players too. Jaikumar Vijayan and Robert McMillan wear me out.

Wired.com Has anything and everything wires or wireless. Kim Zetter, David Kravets seem to have the inside scoop on everything. Kevin Poulsen Sr Editor used to run from the law with Kevin Mitnick and now bitch slaps anyone who says stupid stuff.

StorefrontBackTalk.com. Run by Evan Schuman is a smart e-commerce/retail/PCI publication

DataLossDB is run by the Open Security Foundation, an ornery bunch that keeps tabs on insecurity. Provides accurate statistics to CSO’s and CTO’s to assist them in decision making. They and their merry band of volunteers are watching you.

USAToday Michelle Kessler is all technology and Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz are very respected journalists who come up with the best insider stories on the planet, and have never ever called me.

The Washington Post Security Fix by Brian Krebs. Nobody has more crack heads, meth addicts and criminal hackers begging to tell their stories to a well known journalist. At least that’s my impression. You can’t not learn from this guy.

Information-Security-Resources.com a new addition to my feeds is edited by Anthony M. Freed and has contributions by Richard Stiennon and Danny Lieberman who often draw colorful commentary.

Nextadvisor.com/blog/ a consumer based easily digestible take on whats new and current in consumer security issues and product comparison.  Kent and Caitlin keep tabs on all things “need to know”.

IAPP Daily Dashboard Mike Spinney, Senior Privacy Analyst , CIPP is a senior privacy analyst with the Ponemon Institute. Dude just rocks.

CNET Elinor Mills does the best job of breaking down complex issues into bite size chunks.

Increasing your information security vocabulary helps keep you and your business secure, like eating good food and exercising helps keep you healthy. So get smart. Up your IT/infosec intelligence. Read these sources and follow these journalists. They all gut good words.

  • And do yourself a favor: Get a credit freeze. Go to ConsumersUnion.org and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name.

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing all kinds of security stuff on TBS Movie and a Makeover

Insider Identity Theft Can Be Most Damaging

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Earlier this week, an IT employee was indicted for stealing the identities of 150 of his coworkers at Bank of New York Mellon, to the tune of 1.1 million bucks. He bilked almost $140,000 a year over an eight year period by compromising the online bank accounts of numerous employees and wiring money to fraudulent accounts outside the bank.

This is a classic case of the fox watching the hen house. This guy was an insider terrorist, looking his colleagues straight in the eye and lying to them. I rank him with pedophiles and serial killers.

As much as 70% of all identity theft is committed by someone with inside access to organizations such as corporations, banks, or government agencies, or by someone who has an existing relationship with the victim. People with access to sensitive personal data are most likely to commit identity theft. For many, it’s just too easy not to.

An identity thief begins by acquiring a target’s personal identifying information: name, Social Security number, birth date and address, account information etc. If the thief has regular access to a database, this data is right there for the taking. Many credit applications and online accounts request current and previous addresses. So the thief fills out the victim’s current address as “previous” and plugs in a new address, usually a P.O. box or the thief’s own address, where the new credit card or statement will be sent. I’m amazed that a lender or credit card company can be careless enough to send a new credit card to a relatively anonymous P.O. box. The lender just checks the victim’s credit and, since everything matches, no red flags pop up. The card is issued, the account is opened and the fun begins.

In the Bank of New York Mellon case, investigators found dozens of bank and credit statements in the names of the victims at the thief’s home address.

Think for a moment about your house or apartment, and how you might break in if you lost your keys. If a burglar knew what you know about where you hide and store your stuff, how much damage could he do? Insiders pose the same problem. They know the ins and outs of all systems in place, and can wreak havoc on your operation as long as they are employed, and sometimes even after they are let go.

The problems begin when we are forced to trust people with complete access in order to allow them to perform their required duties. Ultimately, this is a people problem and needs to be addressed as such.

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 beings to drive down the street while cars are heading toward you, separated only by a thin painted line. Without trust, we couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

To protect your business and your data, limit sources as much as possible. Minimize the personnel with access to essential systems. Supervise the supervisors. Even your good apples can eventually go bad, so limit access, even for those who are in a trusted position. And require checks and balances, with multiple layers of authorization. If one person is always watching over another person’s shoulder, bad apples can’t hide or execute scams. Perform due diligence. In the information age, our lives are an open book. Background checks from information brokers are crucial. Failing to do background checks increases your liability. Someone who has been previously convicted of a crime just might do it again. And if a breach of trust does occur, prosecute the guilty. Make an example that other’s won’t forget. Public hangings are a strong deterrent.

Get a credit freeze. Go to ConsumersUnion.org and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name.

And invest in Intelius identity theft protection. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk. “Disclosures”

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.

Robert Siciliano identity theft speaker discussing identity theft on Fox News

Congress Breached via P2P Filesharing…AGAIN!

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Congress is still considering the Informed P2P User Act, a law that would supposedly make it safer to use peer-to-peer file sharing software, an effort that is similar to banning mosquitoes from sucking blood. It just isn’t happening. The only foolproof way to prevent accidental data leaks via file sharing programs is for IT administrators to lock down networks and prevent the installation of rogue software.

Congress suffered another embarrassing P2P breach last week, after a confidential memo regarding an ethics investigation into the conduct of thirty House members was leaked, thanks to file sharing software installed by a junior staff member. This follows similar leaks that occurred earlier this year, which revealed sensitive details regarding the security of the First Family. House leaders have ordered an “immediate and comprehensive assessment” of congressional cybersecurity policies. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chairman of the ethics committee, pointed out that “individual error and sloppiness is always the Trojan horse of cybersecurity.”

Peer-to-peer file sharing allows users to access each other’s computers in order to share music, movies, software, and other files. Unfortunately, many people don’t set up their P2P programs correctly, and they unintentionally end up sharing their most important and sensitive files, including bank records, tax files, health records, and passwords. (This is the same P2P software that allows users to download pirated music, movies and software.) This can result in data breaches, credit card fraud and identity theft. I’ve seen numerous reports of government agencies, drug companies, mortgage brokers, and others discovering P2P software on their networks after sensitive data was leaked.

Savvy users lock down their file sharing software to prevent others from tooling around with their settings. If your IT abilities are scant, you should take the following precautions:

  • Don’t install P2P software on your computer.
  • If you aren’t sure whether a family member or employee has installed P2P software, check to see whether anything unfamiliar has been installed. A look at your “All Programs Menu” will show nearly every program on your computer. If you find an unfamiliar program, do an online search to see what it is.
  • Set administrative privileges to prevent the installation of new software without your knowledge.
  • If you must use P2P software, be sure that you don’t share your entire hard drive. When you install and configure the software, don’t let the P2P program select data for you.
  • Make sure your PC has recently updated Internet security software. P2P networks are riddled with viruses.
  • Get a credit freeze. Go to ConsumersUnion.org and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses P2P hacks on Fox Boston.

10 Ways to Prevent Social Media Scams

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

For the past year, I’ve been screaming about the trouble with social media as it relates to identity theft, brand hijacking, privacy issues, and the opportunity social media creates for criminals to “friend” their potential victims in order to create a false sense of trust and use that against their victims in phishing or other scams. I predicted long ago that the problem will get a lot worse before it gets better and there’s no question about it, criminal hackers have taken hold and are in full force.

We hear about a new Twitter phishing scam almost daily, whether it’s via direct messaging or a shortened URL. My spam folder is filled with emails from Facebook phishers, requesting new login credentials, or a “friend” who’s sending me a video that’s actually a virus.

Not too long ago, it was big news when someone had their Facebook account jacked by someone who impersonated the victim, claiming to have lost their wallet in the UK and begging for a money wire. Lately, I see another story about another victim every week.

Last time I checked, Facebook had more than 400 million users and Twitter has more than 50 million. These numbers jump exponentially every month, and old and new users are still being victimized.

James Carnall, manager of the cyberintelligence division at security monitoring firm Cyveillance, says, “Social media cybersquatting is where domain name cybersquatting was ten years ago”.

Scammers aren’t just stealing identities and spreading malware. They are brand jacking in ways that are hurting companies’ bottom lines. While many may not have sympathy for the bottoms lines of billion dollar corporations, this hurts the little guy, too. Knock off software, hardware, merchandise, and movies ultimately cost legitimate taxpayers jobs and hurt the economy when the money is heading to criminal hackers elsewhere in the world. Liz Miller, vice president of the Chief Marketing Officer Council, says, “Counterfeiting operations are highly organized, are very global and are picking up steam because of the economy.”

MarkMonitor, a company that tracks online threats for its clients, determined that phishing attacks on social networking sites increased by 164% over the past year. And in a CMO Council survey of 4,500 senior marketing executives, nearly 20% of the respondents said they had been affected by online scams and phishing schemes that had hijacked brand names. These statistics undeniably point to organized crime syndicates.

Protect yourself from social media identity theft.

  1. Register your full name and those of your spouse and kids on the most trafficked social media sites, blogs, domains or web based email accounts. If your name is already gone, include your middle initial, a period or a hyphen. It’s up to you to decide whether or not to plug in your picture and basic bio, but consider leaving out your age or birthday. You can do this manually or by using a very cost effective service called Knowem.com.
  2. Register all your officers, company names and branded products on every social media site you can find to prevent Twitter squatting and cybersquatting.
  3. Get free alerts. Set up Google alerts for your name and get an email every time your name pops up online. Set up a free StepRep account for your name. StepRep is an online reputation manager that does a better job than Google does of fetching your name on the web.
  4. Implement policies. Social media is a great platform for connecting with existing and potential clients. However, without some type of policy in place that regulates employee access and guidelines for appropriate behavior, social media may eventually be completely banned from every corporate network. Teach effective use by provide training on proper use and especially what not do to.
  5. Encourage URL decoding. Before clicking on shortened URLs, find out where they lead by pasting them into a URL lengthening service like TinyURL Decoder or Untiny.
  6. Limit social networks. In my own research, I’ve found 300-400 operable social networks serving numerous uses from music to movies, from friending to fornicating. Some are more or less appropriate and others even less secure. Knowem has a mind blowing list of 4600 as of this writing.
  7. Train IT personnel. Effective policies begin from the top down. Those responsible for managing technology need to be fully up to speed.
  8. Maintain updated security. Whether hardware or software, anti-virus or critical security patches, make sure you are up to date.
  9. Lock down settings. Most social networks have privacy settings that need to be administered to the highest level. Default settings generally leave the networks wide open for attack.
  10. Invest in Intelius identity theft protection and prevention. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk. “Disclosures”

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker with ID Analytics discussing Social Media Identity Theft on Fox Boston