The Washington Post reports that this holiday season, Cyber Monday expanded into an entire week of record-breaking online shopping. From Sunday, November 27 through Saturday, December 3, consumers spent nearly $6 billion over the Internet, a 15% increase over the same week in 2010. During the first 32 days of the November-December holiday season, online…
Auction fraud refers to fraudulent transactions that take place through auction and classifieds websites. Either a product advertised may be misrepresented by the seller or the items sold are never delivered at all. This holiday season, as you seek out hard-to-find gifts and look for the best prices, keep in mind that not everyone out…
Hackers, scammers, cons and thieves take advantage of citizens’ generosity by sending e-mails, making phone calls or even setting up shop on a street corner and try to appear to be legitimate charitable organizations. Do not donate cash: Anyone asking to come to your home or office and pick up cash is a scammer. Any…
The Smart Card Alliance has put together a list of frequently asked questions about how smart cards work in a healthcare environment, and provided excellent answers. A smart card resembles a typical credit card, but is embedded with a small microprocessor chip, which makes it “smart.” That chip is a powerful minicomputer that can be…
In May 2009, the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review called for the development of “a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the Nation.” That “vision and strategy” came to fruition in the form of the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” (NSTIC), which calls…
You may have a single family home, second home, or apartment. And no matter what your abode sitchy is, there is no place like home. Whenever I leave, I miss my family, house, and stuff. When we go on vacation, we are always happy to go home. I hope your sitchy feels the same. And…
Laptops, desktops, Macs, mobiles, and tablets are on many people’s wish lists this holiday season. Once these shiny new devices are connected to the Internet, they will be under siege by malware created by criminals in order to steal identities. According to a recent McAfee survey, 60% of consumers now own at least three digital devices,…
On our way home from a recent family vacation, my two year old grew understandably anxious and uncooperative while waiting for a flight in an airport terminal. So I handed over my iPhone, hoping to distract her. Within seconds, she had launched the photo application and begun scrolling through the videos of our trip. She’d…
Sleazy Grinchy scammy conmen are also in the process of providing holiday gifts for their families. But the way they do it is by taking hard earned money from good people. Scammers know that almost 100 billion dollars is spent annually on gift cards and studies show that almost 2/3rds of consumers prefer to receive…
EMV, which stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, refers to the chip and PIN credit card technology commonly used in Europe and elsewhere around the world. Credit cards that incorporate an embedded microprocessor chip are far more secure than any other form of credit card currently available, including the standard magnetic striped cards that are…
