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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

I love my dog, 60lb German Shepherd. Small for a GS, she was the runt. I’ve always rooted for the underdog. The underdog has more heart, more passion and they try harder. My GS is a perfect example.  She’s my second in 20 years. After the first one passed, another was in my house 4 months later. With a wife who was 4 months pregnant. That was a fought contest between man and wife that was won when the runt fell on the feet of the wife at the kennel. I had nothing to do with it!

My dog watches the house when I’m gone. She is me, but furrier. She hears and sees things like I do. She’s territorial and knows when something is OK, and when it isn’t. We both bark too. Some say I’m half Italian, half German Shepherd! I have to be careful about disciplining someone who might trespass into my yard in front of the dog. When I use a confrontational or stern voice to a stranger, the dog goes nuts, as she should.

It doesn’t matter how big or small a dog is. Most, but not all dogs have a territorial instinct. This is a good back up alarm, a good deterrent. And it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog that matters most.

This story caught my eye” A warning for internet users: an online scam targeting pet-lovers is circulating the web, and it could cost you more than a new pet.

An ad posted to a local online classified website by a man who claimed he was living in Florida. The seller said he had recently moved to Miami, and couldn’t keep his dog due to his new living conditions. He was willing to give the Labrador Retriever puppy named Dely away for the cost of shipping, which was $220.

The couple sent a delivery service $220 by way of Western Union. The delivery service told the family to send another $820 or risk losing the dog. That’s when the couple realized they’d been scammed. They told the person on the other end of the phone the deal was off. But the caller kept calling, becoming more aggressive each time.

“He kept calling me saying the dogs here,” said the victim. “Making me feel like this poor dog is sitting somewhere unattended.” When the caller realized the couple wasn’t sending the extra $820 he threatened to turn them into authorities and charge them with animal abandonment. “We didn’t know if something was really going to happen to us. We didn’t know if we could get in trouble.” They said. That’s when they decided to call police. Authorities were at their home in less than an hour. They looked at the emails, the website, and tried to trace the phone calls. Officials determined the entire thing was a scam.

Scammers will say and do anything to get a person to part with their money. At first they had a sob story that sounded like a legitimate issue, new housing, can’t have a pet. When posted in a classified ad, it looks legitimate. Then they involved a “shipping company” that was a front for the scam. Once the victims were asked to send money via Western Union, that should have been a red-flag.

It’s best to always do business like this locally. Never automatically trust over the phone or via the internet. Unless the business is one that is well established online, don’t ever send money that you can’t get back. Money orders and wiring money have less security than a credit card does. Anytime the transaction involves wiring money, that’s a dead giveaway. In any virtual transaction, I’d suggest using a credit card, but not without first checking the legitimacy of the business or the individual. A quick scan online of a company, individual, or even the nature of a transaction can often provide enough information to make an informed decision.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing advanced fee scams on the Mike and Juliet Show. Disclosures

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

In Wichita, Kansas they are facing a huge up tick in burglaries. Generally, crimes of this nature rise when there is a financial crisis, unemployment, gangs and drug activity. Police there have recorded 2,839 burglaries last year, a 10.2 percent increase over the same period the year before.

Of the 2,839 burglaries, 384 — or 13.5 percent — occurred while residents were home. Many of these burglaries occurred as people slept in their homes. Home security conscious people can’t even imagine that is possible, but I know it is. Too many people don’t think it can happen to them and don’t lock their doors or even have a home alarm system.

The article states “The burglars had to have known that someone was home — there were cars in garages and driveways, and purses visible in the homes. The criminals came in anyway — a brazen, potentially dangerous risk that burglars rarely take, experts say.”

The local police passed out a flier alerting residents that burglars hit two homes between midnight and 5 a.m. last Friday while families slept. You might ask if these people live in “Pleasantville” and have no idea that these things happen. But the “it can’t happen to me” syndrome is a real issue.

“They didn’t even know until they got up,” said their Police Chief. Can you imagine that?!!.

The report states that burglars simply entered through unlocked doors. In one of the burglaries, a couple with small children woke up after being alerted by their growling dog. Dogs are great. But a home alarm in place would have alerted them first.

Many alarms are installed after the home is broken into. Once a home is burgled, people lose their sense of security and try to gain it back with the installation of an alarm. A home alarm certainly provides security, but people who are victimized in this way often face years of emotional after shocks.

The key to security is thinking proactively and doing things to secure your self and family before something bad happens. Don’t think “it can’t happen to me”, think “yes, there is a chance this can happen and I’m going to set an example and do something about it.”

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing burglar proofing your home on Fox Boston. Disclosures

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

The Haiti tragedy has people all over the world scrambling to donate money to help in the relief effort. It is no surprise that scammers have ramped up and are sending “phish” emails designed to extract your money to their own nefarious cause, “themselves.” Right now, there is 24 hours news reports focusing on the tragedy and people are understandably getting sucked into the drama of the events. This is a prime time to reach out to those same people who are enmeshed in the reports and get them to donate to fake organizations. The following tip will help prevent you from getting scammed and get your donation into the right hands.

Do not donate cash: Anyone asking to come to your home or office and pick up cash is a scammer. Any phone calls or emails received requesting cash or to wire money transfers is a scam.

Be suspect of all emails requesting donations: I would never click on a link in an email, especially short URL’s. Always manually enter the domain name into the address bar. The best thing is to go directly to the organization’s website.

Check with the Better business Bureau: The first thing you should always do prior to making a donation to any charity is to check their credibility with the BBB. Go online to http://www.bbb.org/us/Charity-Reviews/ and search out the charity.

Give only to charities, not individuals: Any communication from someone requesting money because of their hardship is an obvious scam. But some people are saps for an emotional sob story. While you may be savvy enough not to fall for these scams, someone in your life who may be naïve could.

Give now and consider giving to the Red Cross: The American Red Cross is the most known and credible organization on the planet for helping out those in despair. Give now and give as much as you can.

Robert Siciliano is a personal security and identity theft expert for Home Security Source discussing phishing emails on CBS Boston. (Disclosures)

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

The last decade we have seen technological breakthroughs unlike any other. In response we have seen a tremendous rise in fraud.  The reason? The speed of the conveniences technology have far outpaced the security of technology.

PC World puts out their list:

Cyberwar: In February 2000, a Canadian teenager named Mafiaboy used automated floods of incomplete Internet traffic to cause several sites–including Amazon, CNN, Dell, eBay, and Yahoo–to grind to a halt, in what is called a distributed denial of attack.

Malware: Viruses and worms have always been around, but in the summer of 2001 one aggressive worm threatened to shut down the official White House Website.

MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter Attacks: At the beginning of the decade, security experts at businesses had to struggle with employees’ use of instant messaging from AOL, Webmail from Yahoo, and peer-to-peer networks. These applications poked holes in corporate firewalls, opening various ports that created new vectors for malware.

Organized Viruses and Organized Crime: After the Melissa virus struck in 1999, e-mail-borne viruses peaked the following year with ILOVEYOU, which clogged e-mail servers worldwide within 5 hours. (See “The World’s Worst Viruses” for more about a clutch of the decade’s early offenders.)

Botnets: With the financial backing of organized crime syndicates came widespread and clever innovations in malware.

Albert Gonzalez: It wasn’t organized crime but rather a confederacy of criminals that caused some of the largest data breaches over the last few years–attacks that victimized Dave & Busters, Hannaford Brothers, Heartland Payment Systems, and TJX, to name just a few.

Gone Phishing: More effective than spam, yet short of a full-blown data breach, is phishing. The idea here is that a creatively designed e-mail can lure you into visiting a believable-looking site designed solely to steal your personal information.

Old Protocol, New Problem: Behind the Internet are protocols, some of which today perform functions far beyond what they were originally designed to do. Perhaps the most well-known of the overextended protocols is the Domain Name System (DNS), which, as IOActive researcher Dan Kaminisky explained in 2008, could be vulnerable to various forms of attack, including DNS cache poisoning.

Microsoft Patch Tuesdays: A decade ago, Microsoft released its patches only as needed. Sometimes that was late on a Friday afternoon, which meant that bad guys had all weekend to reverse-engineer the patch and exploit the vulnerability before system administrators showed up for work on Monday.

Paid Vulnerability Disclosure: Independent researchers have debated for years whether to go public with a newly found flaw or to stay with the vendor until a patch is created.

Protect your identity. 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)

Robert Siciliano identity theft speaker discussing credit card fraud on CNBC