Home Invasions Are Ugly

I always do my best not to create fear. Fear based motivation and training stifles progress and turns people off.

Years ago I was invited to present a program at a persons home to their families and was asked a series of questions that devolved into a hopeless mess. At one point, the Mom’s voice cracked and I could see my answers crossed the lines and her whole body exuded fear.  I’ll never forget it.

Unfortunately, the reality of crime is real, and it’s scary. While trying to keep things light, and with a little perspective, try to learn from the following and brace yourself then acknowledge a few days worth of news reports depicting real stories of bad things happening to good people.

Pregnant Woman Shot During Home Invasion. Deputies said two men forced their way into the home and shot the woman twice, in the arm and upper torso. Two children were at the home at the time. They were not injured. Scary. Home with two kids and they witness this. Maybe she’s “lucky” it wasn’t worse?

Newark teen and grandmother are attacked in home invasion by men posing as police. Two men impersonating police officers were armed with handguns, barged into a home in Newark. The two men, who wore police-type badges around their necks, handcuffed the 18 year old forcing the man into a closet while pushing his 76-year-old grandmother to the floor. You never know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy. Just because they have a badge doesn’t mean you should immediately open the door.

Robbers beat paraplegic man, killing his dog in Parker County home invasion. A disabled man was pistol-whipped and his service dog was shot to death during a home invasion robbery. The man had just gotten into bed when two masked robbers kicked in the door of his rural home. The gunmen held the paraplegic man down on his bed and demanded cash. That’s when his 12-year-old German shepherd, Major, entered the room. The intruders shot and killed the dog, then fled with more than $500. “He was doing what he was supposed to do,” Hammons told Channel 8. “I feel like he saved mine and my wife’s life.”

Wow. Again, no fear based training here. This stuff is real and it needs to be acknowledged. Here are a few home safety tips:

Lock your doors day and night.

Don’t open for anyone without first calling a supervisor to confirm their legitimacy.

Every home must have a home security alarm that is also equipped with security cameras. And one of my personal favorites, get a trained German shepherd.

Another consideration is a home safe-room also known as a “panic room” where families can hide out in a relatively bullet proof, well stocked room equipped with wireless communications and wait for law enforcement to show up.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing Home Invasions on Montel Williams.

Parents Navigating the Social Media Mess

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Children say and do things that make them vulnerable to dangers in the outside world. A parent can parent all day long and do everything possible to protect their kids from themselves, but a child’s persistence to have their way can wear a parent down. It’s a constant fight that makes a parent adopt a philosophy where they “pick their battles.

Growing up, it wasn’t all that uncommon for a parent to spank their kids to teach them a lesson. I experienced the occasional “windmill” from my father that set me straight more than once. And I’m thankful for it. By all accounts, if you add up all the number of risks I took and how many times the speedometer redlined and all the stupid things I did, I really shouldn’t be writing this. If a cat has nine lives I have 999,999,999,999. I think that’s trillion.

At one point political correctness crept into our culture and the fear of a child calling the Department of Social Services (DSS) on their parents because of a deserved fanny smack sent a cold chill down every parent’s spine. I’m certainly not saying it’s OK to beat your kids, or cage them for that matter. And when a child has zero fear of a parent, they tend to walk all over them. It’s in their nature to manipulate until they get their way. I’m just sayin.

A 16 year old ungrateful, self righteous teen has filed charges against his mother for making entries on his Facebook page. The kid further filed a no contact order against his mother. The mother apparently took over his Facebook account after she noticed some reckless behavior.

She was quoted saying “I read things on his Facebook about how he had gone to Hot Springs one night and was driving 95 m.p.h. home because he was upset with a girl and it was his friend that called me and told me about all this that prompted me to even actually start really going through his Facebook to see what was going on.”

What mother wouldn’t be concerned?  Hey kid, the day you deliver anything in excess of 10 pounds out of an orifice on your body, then you can have a say. I hope you have kids just like you.

I think my head is going to explode.

Protect your identity.

1. Get a credit freeze 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.

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

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing Breach of 3.3 million Social Security numbers on Good Morning America

Deputy Reports Finding Peek-a-boo Home Burglar in Closet

Turn up your Creep-o-meter for this one. In Florida, law enforcement arrested a man on a home burglary charge after a deputy spotted him sitting in a closet with a sheet over his upper body while his blue jeans and brown boots remained visible.

A relative of the homeowner notified local law enforcement when they received a call that a home security alarm was tripped. The deputy went to the home and noticed a window air-conditioned had been removed from a window and was an obvious point of entry.

The creep had a knife when they arrested him.

In the UK a couple was sleeping when a man broke into their home and went into their bedroom to steal the woman’s underwear. The intruder went into the kitchen and grabbed an 8 inch steak knife. The victims woke up to find the intruder with a knife inches from their faces. The boyfriend quickly responded and subdued the man until police arrived.

Down under in Australia a father-of-two feared for his family’s safety when a burglar broke into their home, wandering through the family’s bedrooms in search for “something to make quick money” with. While the home burglar was in the parents’ bedroom he unplugged the father’s mobile phone to steal it. When he did the phones light turned on and woke up the dad. Instantly the father sprung up and chased the burglar out of the house and through an open window. The father was quoted saying “I am really annoyed – it doesn’t worry me that he broke in …, but what’s a real worry is that this person was only two inches away from my head, from my wife, from my girls.”

His 9 year old daughter said “It’s creepy to know someone walked into your room and looked at you while you were asleep.”

People, PLEASE! Lock your doors and windows! In two of these examples the homeowners were sleeping with no home alarms and the intruder walked right in! With kids in the house! Install a home security system with motion detectors. PLEASE!

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing personal and home security on Fox Boston.

April Foolery and Springtime Home Scams

Spring is here! Thank heavens. I’ve had enough cold and rain to last 50 winters. In the Northeast millions of people are pumping out their basements due to record rainfalls. The Boston Globe reports police want you to know that so you don’t get hit twice from the recent rains: once when your property gets damaged, and again when a con artist comes calling at your door looking to rob you.

First, there is no such thing as the “Municipal Water Disaster Department.” But in drenched communities home scammers are posing as inspectors and gaining access to people’s homes.

In one incident a man knocked on an older couple’s door asking to see their basement to check utilities for safety purposes. Once inside he told them he needed to go upstairs to check on something and they should remain downstairs. The couple remained in the basement waiting for instruction but after about 15 minutes they realized something was wrong. They went upstairs to find the man was gone and $7,500 had been taken from a safe and hundreds more stolen from elsewhere in the home.

This time of the year people are also doing their spring cleaning and home scammers are trying to clean you out too. Apparently chimney sweep and chimney repair is something to look out for. Someone knocking on your door looking to sweep your chimney may do the job, but may also find all kinds of unnecessary repairs that they will try to sell you. Don’t get me wrong here, if someone tells you your chimney needs repair, act on it, but first get a second opinion on it. And do it fast because a broken chimney is a severe health hazard.

Look for driveway repair home scams, phony landscapers, window washing scams, trash removal or clean out home scams. All I’m saying’ is you need to have your head up and pay attention to what’s going on out there. Scammers are using every possible event, holiday, season or tragedy to catch you with your guard down.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing home invasions and home security on the Montel Williams Show.

10 Personal Safety and Security Tips

Fundamentals: Body language is 55% of communications. That’s your walk, posture, facial expressions and eye contact. Awareness is being alert to your surroundings at all times. Intuition is when the hair on the back of your neck stands on end. Voice tone and pitch equal 35% of communications. The way a person communicates physically and verbally can determine whether or not a predator deems you a good target.

Prevent Abductions: When returning to a parked car, scan the area around your car, be alert to suspicious activity. Be aware of vans. Abductors and rapist open up the side doors and pull in their victims.

Never Use Your Keys As A Weapon: Contrary to popular belief your keys are not a good weapon. Using your keys as a weapon can injure your hand, the keys can break, you lose your “key to safety”, and you lose access to your car and home which are safe havens. Unless it’s a LARGE key. Then it’s a good weapon.

Prevent Home Invasions: You tell your children not to talk to strangers, so why do you open the door to a total stranger? Home-invaders pose as delivery people, public workers, or people in distress. Install peepholes, talk through the door. Under no circumstances do you open the door unless you get phone numbers to call their superiors. If someone is in distress tell him or her you will call the police for them. Install security cameras and a home security system.

Safety On The Streets: One dollar bills and change in an easily accessible pocket. Then if someone tries to rob you, you can throw the “chump change” several feet away. The robber will draw his attention to it giving you time to escape. Do not fight over material items.

What To Do If Attacked: Fighting, running and screaming are all options. Remember: You are worth fighting for!

Safety In Your Car: In the event of a minor accident, stop only in a well-lit area. Carjackers often provoke such “accidents” just to get a victim to stop. DO NOT stop on a deserted, dark street. Drive to a police station or a gas station. Use a cell phone and call 911.

Home Safe Home: Consider a second line or a cell phone in your bedroom. That’s because burglars often remove a telephone from the receiver when they enter a home. Of course, an alarm system activated while you are sleeping will prevent a home burglar from getting this far. Newer home alarms have cellular options, a safeguard even if the phone lines are cut.

Vacation/Business Traveler Safety: Be suspicious of a call from the hotel desk just after checking in requesting verification of your credit card number “because the imprint was unreadable.” A thief may have watched you enter the hotel room and called from the guest phone in the lobby. Never open your hotel room to anyone.

Telephone Security: Never give personal information over the phone unless you initiate the call. Do not click on links in text messages asking you to update banking information. Set your mobile to require password access in case it’s lost or stolen.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing home security and identity theft on TBS Movie and a Makeover.

ID Theft Ring Gleaned Socials From Medical Records

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Medical identity theft occurs when the perpetrator uses your name and in some cases other aspects of your identity, such as insurance information, to obtain medical treatment or medication or to make false claims for treatment or medication. As a result, erroneous or fraudulent entries wind up on your medical records, or sometimes entirely fictional medical records are created in your name. Financial identity theft as it relates to new account fraud is when an identity thief gets the victim’s Social Security number and opens new financial accounts under the victim’s name. There’s very little protection from this due to a flawed system of open credit and lack of authenticating the actual “owner” of the SSN.

In Chicago, ABC News reports “Seven people have been arrested in an identity theft ring that allegedly used information stolen from victims’ medical records to obtain credit cards. The identities of more than 200 patients of a Chicago hospital were stolen. The information was stolen from the offices of the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation. That information led to $300,000 worth of goods and services being racked up on fraudulently.The suspects are even accused of using Facebook to post photos of themselves posing with stolen clothing and jewelry.”

One of the rings leaders alleged to have been a part of the group, is being held on $100,000 bond. Apparently her third run-in with the law.

Her mom said “That’s really not her. She is a good person. She do have a heart.” She “do”, huh? She do like to steal identities too. And she do like to buy her nice stuff with those stolen identities. The victims have to spend many hours cleaning up their good names. They may be denied loans in the process or jobs or insurance due to bad credit.

You do need to protect yourself from new account fraud and identity theft protection and a credit freeze is the best way. I did a spot on Good Morning America on this story below.

1. Get a credit freeze 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.

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

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing ID Theft Ring on Good Morning America

Self-revelation Can Help Assemble a Social Security Number

I am not done nor will I ever be done sounding that alarm, ringing that bell and informing you about how ridiculous social media is. I was asked in a radio interview today what it will take to get people to recognize they are sharing too much data. In a word, tragedy. When a home is broken into, they install a home security alarm. When someone is mugged, they take a self defense course. When planes fly into buildings, we get frisked. Being smart is understanding risk and being proactive.

Most people are smart enough to NOT give out a social security number on Facebook. However between what you say, your family, friends and colleagues say and post, your profile is becoming more complete every minute. Even your mom or wife posts her name as “First Maiden Last” because she saw someone else do it and it made sense to allow her old friends/flames to find her.

But today with all this personal information readily available there are now rumblings from academia that they have cracked the code and have assembled technologies to decipher all this information and turn it into hard decipherable data that leads to opening new accounts in your name.

The New York Times reportscomputer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person’s identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number. So far, this type of powerful data mining, which relies on sophisticated statistical correlations, is mostly in the realm of university researchers, not identity thieves and marketers.”

SearchSecurity.com reports that researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a reliable method to predict Social Security numbers using information from social networking sites, data brokers, voter registration lists, online white pages and the publicly available Social Security Administration’s Death Master File.

Originally, the first three numbers on a Social Security card represented the state in which a person had initially applied for their card. Numbers started in the northeast and moved westward. This meant that people on the east coast had the lowest numbers and those on the west coast had the highest. Before 1986, people were rarely assigned a Social Security number until age 14 or so, since the numbers were used for income tracking purposes.

From this point on I’d suggest locking down social media profiles in a way that they are not publicly accessible. Prevent anyone (except those very close to you) from seeing and reading everything about your daily activities, who you associate with and all the names and contact information of all your friends and family.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing cracking the code and wireless security on Fox Boston.

Social Media Security: Using Facebook to Steal Company Data

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

There is a reason why computer users are called “users.” Like crack addicts who are drug users, more is never enough. And when under the influence, people do stupid things. I find myself scanning the Dell catalog like it’s the latest (or any) Victoria Secrets catalog. I’m amazed at how many people I know are online all day long and digitally stoned. The bad guy knows you are obsessed and uses this against you. He sees that you are comfortably numb here. He understands that in the virtual world you’re delirious and more apt to respond to his message then log your credentials.

Meanwhile Facebook’s security and privacy issues are being challenged from all sides. And during the brouhaha one of the Facebooks investors fell for a Facebook phishing scam.

Steve Stasiukonis is vice president and founder of Secure Network Technologies Inc. and publishes to Dark Reading tested his clients network using a bogus identity, and joined the companies Facebook site and started mining the names and email addresses of individuals who identified themselves as employees.

As he collected a database of names for a penetration test in the phish, he secured a domain name similar to that of his client. This domain name took on the appearance of a human resources or benefits portal. When he emailed the employees as “human resources,” they were redirected to a Web page, such as https://www.xyzcompany-benefits.com.

He has been able to accumulate significant numbers of emails for phishing targets from Facebook and other social networking sites. When he launched his companie’s Facebook spear-phishing attack, he usually got an average response rate of 45 to 50 percent. So nearly half of the employees responded to an email with the logins and passwords they use on their employers’ network.

Steve says:

— Officially sponsor the social networking site and assign an administrator who is responsible for permitting employees to join. This will help control somebody infiltrating the site for devious purposes.

— Establish a social networking policy. If your employees are participating in social networking sites (company sponsored or not) make sure company policies dictate what is and is not permissible. For example, divulging your corporate email account on social networking sites should not be permitted.

— Last but not least, if employees feel the need to gather and converse about their day-to-day work, personal lives, and hobbies, consider a corporate intranet. Maybe someday social networking vendors will launch a product that will provide the same features and benefits, but with the security tools needed to keep employees and company secrets safe. But in the meantime, it’s up to you.

Sober up and protect your identity.

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

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing Facebook Hackers on CNN

Criminal Hacker Gets 20. Books, Movies and Hollywood Starlet Next

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Albert Gonzalez and his gang of criminal hackers were responsible for data breaches in retailers and payment processors, with some estimates saying they breached over 230 million records combined. Gonzalez, considered a proficient criminal hacker, provided “dumps,” a term which refers to stolen credit card data, to “carders.” “Carders” are the people who buy, sell, and trade stolen credit card data online.

“Gonzalez and his hacking buddies hacked into computer systems and stole credit card information from TJX, Office Max, DSW and Dave and Buster’s, among other online retail outlets, in one of the largest — if not the largest — cybercrime operations targeting that sort of data thus far. They used some of the stolen numbers to remove cash from ATM machines and sold many of the other numbers to other criminals, including those in Eastern Europe.”

Gonzalez provided “sniffer” software used to intercept the credit and debit card numbers for the Russian hackers. Sniffer software or “malware” malicious software, acts like a virus attaching itself to a network and often spreading. The software allows the criminal hacker backdoor access to all the data in the server and provides remote control functionality.

Wired reports Gonzalez earned $75,000 a year working undercover for the U.S. Secret Service, informing on bank card thieves before he was arrested in 2008 for running his own multimillion-dollar card-hacking operation.

It was reported that Gonzalez buried a million dollars in the backyard of his parents’ Miami home. At one point he cracked and drew a map for investigators to find the money. WOW!

How many people in the course of history have actually dug a hole and buried a million bucks in it? I can’t wait to see the movie. I’d be happy playing a part in it. I’ll be the shovel.

Protect your identity.

1. Get a credit freeze 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.

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

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing Breach of 3.3 million Social Security numbers on Good Morning America

Be careful Your PC Isn’t Held for Ransom

Computerworld reported that a hacker threatened to expose health data and demanded $10 million from a government agency. The alleged ransom note posted on the Virginia DHP Prescription Monitoring Program site claimed that the hacker had backed up and encrypted more than 8 million patient records and 35 million prescriptions and then deleted the original data. “Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too.” “Uh oh,” posted the hacker.

Holding data hostage is sometimes done using “ransomware” Otherwise known as “ransom software.” The software gets on your PC as the result of you downloading an infected attachment or clicking the links in the body of an email. Sometimes you can get ransomware simply by visiting a website in what’s called a “drive-by.”

Once your PC is infected with ransomeware it locks down your files in a way that prevents you from accessing them and gives the bad guy full control of your machine.  Sometimes the virus poses as a “Browser Security and Anti-adware” security application whose license has expired. Windows machines infected by the malware are confronted by a full-screen message that poses as a Windows error.

This type of an exploit not common, but it’s definitely a rising star in the malware community. The best way to avoid this is to make sure your PC is updated with the most current version of your operating system, and anti-virus definitions. It’s also very important not to click on links in the body of an email or visit rogue websites that may have viruses that inject themselves into your browser.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing Ransomware on Fox Boston.