Social Media Banned, Creates Identity Theft Risk

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

The Marines recently banned soldiers from using social media sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. This is for two reasons. First, because they fear that these sites’ lack of security may allow malware to infiltrate government computers. And second, they’re concerned about the potential for leaked military data. Military personnel are often prohibited from informing friends and family of their locations or missions, regardless of whether they’re communicating with handwritten letters, email, or the telephone. These measures are necessary to prevent leaks that would impede the soldiers’ missions and safety.

It’s no surprise that they have now banned social media.  I recently reported on Sir John Sawers, the incoming head of MI6, the British equivalent of the CIA. His wife posted sensitive personal information to her Facebook page, including the address of the couple’s London apartment and the locations of their children and Sir John’s parents. Military personnel should held to a higher standard. We are talking about national security here, and we can’t risk leaks that could jeopardize lives.

Anyone who thinks this is absurd need only look at sporting events for confirmation of why this type of communication should be banned. Every time I watch a baseball or football game, when I see the coaches talking to players, or the pitcher talking to the catcher, they cover their mouths with a hand, glove or paperwork. Why? Because there are thousands of “lip readers” watching the event who are happy to report on what was just said in order to give the opposing team an advantage. You’d think after all these years covering their mouths, lip readers would just give up. But no, that’s not the case at all. There’s always someone watching, waiting, hoping for someone to screw up so they can give the other team an advantage.

Today, social media gives scammers an advantage. Somebody is always watching and waiting for an opportunity. Social media is built on trusting relationships. Scammers can exploit that trust to gather information that could be used in password attacks. If you ever forget your password and have to reset it, the answers to several of the security questions might already be available in your profile. And in many cases, the default privacy settings leave profiles open to anyone.

Security professionals were able to create a virus called ZombieSmiles, which gains control of the victim’s browser and allows the hacker to access supposedly private data through the Facebook API, including friends, groups, wall postings and applications. Facebook applications allow a third party to access your data, which opens a Pandora’s box of possibilities for hackers. So if you send me a Facebook application and I refuse, it isn’t because I’m being rude, it’s because I think that the potential risks simply outweigh the benefits. No offense. I just don’t want my identity stolen.

If you use social media and regularly update your status or profile with pictures, video, or information about your whereabouts or daily routines, please keep the following advice in mind:

  1. Before you post anything online, think about what a hacker, stalker, employer, or potential employer could do with that data. Could an ex, who’s fighting for custody, use the data against you in court?
  2. Don’t give away specifics. Don’t post your address, date of birth, kids’ names, pets’ names, phone numbers, or any account numbers or financial information of any kind. You really shouldn’t even post childrens’ photos online.
  3. Do not tell the world you are going on vacation! Or if you’re just going to dinner or the beach and won’t be at your house for several hours, why would you let potential burglars know that you’re away?
  4. If you’re a “partier” and like to imbibe, informing the world that you just smoked a joint is not only one of the worst things you could do for your career, it also makes all your friends guilty by association. And don’t announce that you’re hungover, because after the age of 23, you ought to know better.
  5. Before posting pictures or videos, consider what a criminal or potential employer might see. Could they be used against you in any way?
  6. If you let your kids use social media, you must monitor every aspect of their Internet activities. Pick up McAfee’s Family Protection software and take control of your childrens’ Internet use.
  7. Take advantage of privacy settings and lock down your profile, so that only those who you approve can view everything.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discusses a Facebook Hack on CNN

Social Media Identity Theft Hits MLB Coach On Twitter

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Identity Theft Expert Robert Siciliano

The scourge of identity theft knows no boundaries. It can happen to anyone: rich, poor, good credit, bad credit. Victims include children, the elderly, celebrities and politicians, even the dead. Identity theft may include new account fraud, account takeover, criminal identity theft, business identity theft and medical identity theft. Most of these result in financial loss.

One form of identity theft that is particularly damaging to the victim’s reputation is social media identity theft. Social media identity thieves have various motivations. The most damaging type of social media identity theft occurs when someone poses as you in order to disrupt your life. This disruption can take on many forms. They may harass and stalk you or your contacts, or they may steal your online identity for financial gain.

In the case of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, someone created a Twitter account in his name. La Russa is suing Twitter, claiming the impostor Twitter page damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress. The lawsuit includes a screen shot of three tweets. One, posted on April 19, read, “Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher.” Apparently, La Russa has had a drunk driving arrest and two Cardinals pitchers have died since 2002. One pitcher died of a heart attack, the other in a drunk driving accident.

There is no limit to the damage someone can do by using your name and picture in order to impersonate you online. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an 18 year old student was accused of posing as a girl on Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves, and then blackmailing some of these young men for sex acts.

Social media websites were created with the intention of bringing people together in a positive way, but we are beginning to see these sites being used in very sinister ways. The root of the problem is the fact that social media sites are all based on the honor system, with the assumption that people are honestly setting up accounts in their own names. There are few checks and balances in the world of social media, which means that you need to adopt a strategy from yet another form of predator to protect yourself.

There are hundreds or even thousands of social media sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. Even your local newspaper’s website has a place for user comments, and most people would prefer to register their own names before someone else has done so on their behalf.

I have obtained over 200 user names pertaining to my given name in order to mitigate social media identity theft. This may sound obsessive, but the two examples given above are all the proof anyone needs to clamp down on social media. I’m on everything from Affluence.org to Zooomr.com. Some I use, others just have my profile and a link back to my website. I should also mention that there are some hazards involved in such a mission. You may experience a spike in spam, as I did, so I suggest creating an alternate email address. Furthermore, some websites make you join various groups that you don’t have much control over. I’m now a member of some masochistic fetish group of the opposite sex. Not exactly what I signed up for. So be careful.

The goal is to obtain your real first and last name without periods, underscores, hyphens, abbreviations or extra numbers or letters.

These tips bear repeating:

  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.
  2. Set up a free Google Alerts for your name and get an email every time your name pops up online.
  3. Set up a free StepRep account for your name. StepRep is an online reputation manager that does a better job than Google Alerts does of fetching your name on the web.
  4. Consider dropping $65 on Knowem.com. This is an online portal that goes out and registers your name at what they consider the top 120 social media sites. Their top 120 is debatable, but a great start. The user experience with Knowem is relatively painless. There is still labor involved in setting things up and with some of the 120. And no matter what you do, you will still find it difficult to complete the registration with all 120 sites. Some of the social media sites just aren’t agreeable. This can save you lots of time, but is only one part of solving the social media identity theft problem.
  5. Start doing things online to boost your online reputation. Blogging is best. You want Google to bring your given name to the top of search in its best light, so when anyone is searching for you they see good things. This is a combination of online reputation management and search engine optimization for your brand: YOU.
  6. If you ever stumble upon someone using your likeness in the social media, be very persistent in contacting the site’s administrators. They too have reputations to manage and if they see someone using your photo or likeness they would be smart to delete the stolen profile.
  7. Or do nothing and don’t worry about it. But when some other John Doe does something stupid or uses your name in a disparaging way or for identity theft, and people assume that it’s you, remember that I told you so.
  8. Despite all the work you may do to protect yourself, you still need identity theft protection and Internet security software.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses social media privacy.

How to prevent social media identity theft

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Two words: you can’t. However, there are several things you can and should do in order to manage your social media identity, which may prevent social media identity theft. What exactly is social media identity theft? It’s a form of cybersquatting using social media sites.

If you’ve ever attempted to join a social media, more commonly known as a social networking site, or applied for an email account, and found that your first and last name were already taken, that may or may not have been social media identity theft, or cybersquatting.

There may be someone out there who shares your exact name and happened to register first, or else there is someone out there who took your name so that you can’t have it, or who wants to sell it back to you, or wants to pose as you and disrupt your life. These are all possibilities.

The most damaging possibility occurs when someone wants to pose as you in order to disrupt your life. This disruption can take on many forms. They may pose as you in order to harass and stalk you, or to harass and stalk people you know. Or they may steal your social media identity for financial gain. Throughout my years working in the field of financial crimes and identity theft, I’ve seen plenty of social media identity theft that led to financial loss. The thieves use a combination of email and social media to extract funds from others, or to open new accounts.

There are hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of social media sites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube), web-based email providers (hotmail.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com) and domain extensions (.com, .net, .biz). Then there are all the blog portals, such as WordPress and Blogspot. Even your local online newspaper has a place for user comments, and most people would want to register their own names before someone else comments on their behalf.

Social media websites offer the option to provide your real name as well as a user name. The user name may be a fun chat handle or an abbreviation of your real name. The key is to give your real name where requested and also to use your real name as your user name. Even if you don’t plan on spending any time on the site, or to use the domain or email, you want to establish control over it.

The goal is to obtain your real first and last name without periods, underscores, hyphens, abbreviations or extra numbers or letters. Your ideal name, for example would be twitter.com/RobertSiciliano, RobertSiciliano.com, orRobertSiciliano@anymail.com. This strategy won’t prevent someone else from registering with your name and adding a dot or a dash, but it trims down the options for a thief.

Some names are very common, or are also owned by someone famous. If that applies to your name, you can still take actions to manage your online reputation. If there is any uniqueness to your name or the spelling of your name, it’s still a good idea to claim your name in social media and work toward managing your online reputation.

Understand that your name is your brand. Your name is front and center on every document you sign and every website that shows up when your name is searched. The phrase, “All I have is my good name,” has never rung truer than today. If you are a writer, blogger, personality of any sort, or anyone who “puts it out there,” you probably already know enough to do these things. But there is more to do.

If someone, perhaps a potential employer or mate or client, searches your name on Google Web, Google Blogs or Google News, what will they find? Will it be someone else posing as you? Will it be a picture of you doing a keg stand? Or will it be you in your nicest outfit, accepting an award for an accomplishment? Either way, you need to manage your online identity and work toward preventing social media identity theft.

This isn’t an easy task. Nor is it fun. It can be time consuming and almost overwhelming. But I believe that the long term rewards are worth it.

  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.
  2. Set up a free Google Alerts for your name and get an email every time your name pops up online.
  3. Set up a free StepRep account for your name. StepRep is an online reputation manager that does a better job than Google Alerts does of fetching your name on the web.
  4. Consider dropping $65 on Knowem.com. This is an online portal that goes out and registers your name at what they consider the top 120 social media sites. Their top 120 is debatable, but a great start. The user experience with Knowem is relatively painless. There is still labor involved in setting things up and with some of the 120. And no matter what you do, you will still find it difficult to complete the registration with all 120 sites. Some of the social media sites just aren’t agreeable. This can save you lots of time, but is only one part of solving the social media identity theft problem.
  5. Start doing things online to boost your online reputation. Blogging is best. You want Google to bring your given name to the top of search in its best light, so when anyone is searching for you they see good things. This is a combination of online reputation management and search engine optimization for your brand: YOU.
  6. If you ever stumble upon someone using your likeness in the social media, be very persistent in contacting the site’s administrators. They too have reputations to manage and if they see someone using your photo or likeness they would be smart to delete the stolen profile.
  7. Or do nothing and don’t worry about it. But when some other John Doe does something stupid or uses your name in a disparaging way or for identity theft, and people assume that it’s you, remember that I told you so.
  8. Despite all the work you may do to protect yourself, you still need identity theft protection and Internet security software.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses social media privacy.

Privacy Is Dead, Identity Theft Prospers

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My information is in lots and lots of different places. I sacrifice a lot of privacy because of the nature of my business. If I wasnt so dependant on eyeballs I’d live much differently. However to participate in society on any level, privacy becomes a dead issue. Accept it. Or live in the jungle in Africa.

A CEO of a major software company declares, “You have zero privacy, get over it.” In response, the FTC states, “Millions of American consumers tell us that privacy is a grave concern to them when they are thinking about shopping online.”

Do you agree? Is privacy dead? Do you share your “status” on Facebook? Twitter? Do you have a MySpace page? A blog? Do you post your family photos on any of the above, or on Flicker?

The statement, “You have zero privacy, get over it,” was made by Scott McNealy, former chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems, in 1999. That was 10 years ago. Before the phrase “social networking” or the word “blog” entered our lexicon.

Here we are in 2009, when that statement is 100 times more true than it was 10 years ago. When you ask people if they are concerned about online privacy, they respond with a big, loud, angry “YES!” Then they hypocritically use their Facebook pages to inform the world that they are about to go on vacation. Which means that the lights are off and nobody’s home.

It isn’t just web users voluntarily giving up their privacy, it’s also corporations and government agencies gathering data as a form of intelligence. This data might be used to sell you something or it could be used to protect us in the form of Homeland Security.

Our personal information can be bought and sold. “Information brokers” sell our data to anyone with a credit card. One of the largest publicly traded information brokers in the world is a company called ChoicePoint. Last time I checked, they had 19 billion records on file. And one of their biggest customers is the US government.

So even if you don’t update your Facebook status to tell the world you just made a tuna sandwich, chances are, your phone number, your most recent address, or even your anonymous chat handle can be found on Zabasearch.com or iSearch.com. If you’ve ever committed a felony, your data may be on CriminalSearches.com Heck, just Google yourself.

At least head to Facebook and lock down your privacy settings. You get to them from the Settings –> Privacy Settings menu.

If you are reading this, you are participating in society. The price you pay is sacraficing your personal identifying information in order to get an Internet connection, credit, a car, medical attention, to go to school or buy a pair of shoes. While many citizens scream against Big Brother and corporate America abusing their trust, many will also give up all their privacy for ten% off a new pair of shoes.

All this makes it very easy for criminal hackers to commit identity theft. They use this available data to become you. Since your data is already out there, you’d better invest in identity theft protection and make sure your PC is up to date with Internet security software.

For more information, I recommend You Have Zero Privacy – Enjoy It! by Mike Spinny, and Cyberwar’s First Casualty: Your Privacy by Preston Gralla and Why give up Privacy? by Bob Sullivan

Robert Siciliano, identity theft expert, discusses background checks.