Posts

Industry Leader & Best-Selling Author Releasing Highly Anticipated Book for Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2018

/in /by

Press Release | New Book | Identity Theft Privacy By Robert Siciliano, CSP

Basil Ghafoor
Tempe, AZ
Basil@trossconsulting.com
www.Safr.me

Tempe, Arizona, 10/10/2018 – In 2018, Under Armour disclosed that 150 million of their customer records had been stolen. Equifax filed a similar claim for 143 million customer records breached in 2017. Uber, the popular ride-sharing app, admitted to 20 million customer records being compromised in 2016.

If multi-billion dollar corporations are susceptible to data theft, what is stopping a criminal from targeting you? Your business? Your kids?

Identity Theft Privacy: Security Protection and Fraud Prevention will be released this October. This is the latest of five books written by personal security expert Robert Siciliano, CSP. Robert is certified in professional speaking, identity theft risk management, and public investigation. He is also the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller, 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before…Your Identity Was Stolen.

“Practical advice, and to the point with no fluff, just great information and advice. Really enjoyed the book and recommend it! ”

“Saw him on Anderson Cooper, and I knew I had to buy this book. Gives you sound advise on how to avoid ID problems and how to protect your kid’s ID”

“It is a fast and easy book to read and worth buying to protect yourself and family!”

– Amazon Customers

Robert believes that, when it comes to preventing cybercrime victimization, awareness and knowledge are king. Robert’s new book provides readers with content explaining how to protect your personal and professional privacy. Privacy protection applies to anyone who uses social media, telecommunication apps (e.g. Skype, Facetime, and Snapchat), online banking, and email among other technologies.

Even if you do not use technology, someone you care about does such as clients, family, or friends. Robert’s goal is to ensure that everyone has the proper tools to prevent cybercrime.

As you progress through different stages in life, there will be times when you are exposed to fraud and theft. How do you protect your identity today? How are people trying to steal your identity as you read this?

These two important questions are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to securing your personal identity.  Whether you are concerned about your individual identity, your small business, or a large corporation, this book provides ways to protect yourself online and out in the tangible world.

Identity Theft Privacy: Security Protection and Fraud Prevention does not promote anti-virus software or products based on scare tactics. Robert is not selling insurance; his philosophy is based on prevention.

Robert has helped over 50,000 readers by increasing their level of personal security through strategies you can apply immediately from home. Now, you can find everything you need to know about your identity privacy in one complete book! Get your copy today!

Identity Theft Privacy can be purchased here.

For a limited time only, Robert is offering 25% off all Safr.me educational courses.

A coupon code will be provided through email with the book purchase receipt.

Robert Siciliano is the CEO of Safr.me—an online resource created to help individuals who couldn’t see him speak. Safr.me’s mission is to help others by educating them on the reality of cybercrime as well as the most effective human-based practices to secure oneself in the digital and physical world. Safr.me empowers, supporting users to take charge of their own personal information and data before something bad happens.

[/av_textblock]

17 ways to prevent identity theft when traveling

/in /by

There should be more TV commercials for preventing identity theft—it’s nearly epidemic. But also epidemic is the lack of identity security that people have when traveling. Here are some ways to avoid having your identity stolen while traveling: 3D

  • Prior to leaving for your trip, clean out your purse and wallet. Figure out what you really need for the trip, then bring only those items.
  • Contact the post office to put your mail on vacation hold.
  • Get a home-screen-locking password for your smartphone.
  • Equip your computer devices with encryption software.
  • Your smartphone should have lock/locate/wipe software.
  • Bring your driver’s license with you even if you don’t plan on driving anywhere, for ID; don’t rely on your passport alone. The driver’s license and international ID should have online backups made.
  • When using public Wi-Fi (even in your hometown), use only WEP, WPA and WPA2 networks, and visit only the sites that have the padlock symbol and “https” before their URLs. That’s how you know they are secure.
  • Arrange to have enough cash with you to make the majority (if not all) of your travel purchases. Avoid using a debit card because if it gets compromised, you won’t be able to get reimbursed.
  • Back up your data prior to leaving and every day when away. Prior to your trip and during, make sure to have local and cloud backup set up on your devices. Cloud backup such as Carbonite will update your data based on custom settings as frequently as you require.
  • Even if you have encryption software, avoid financial transactions when using the hotel’s computer. The person using it after you could be a skilled cyber thief, or the person before you could have plugged a keylogger into the computer.
  • Avoid isolated ATM kiosks. Use those only inside a bank. Shield your fingers when using the keypad. Promptly destroy the receipts.
  • Never give private information over the phone to hotel staff. The “staff” could be a thief posing as an employee. When personal information is involved, always deal face to face at the front desk.
  • Any documents or paperwork with private information should be locked inside your hotel room’s safe at all times unless in use.
  • Give your phone number out only to service personnel who absolutely need it.
  • Have your credit put on freeze status (unless you plan on applying for a loan very soon).
  • Get ID theft protection.
  • Review your credit card statements monthly and look for unexpected charges.

Robert Siciliano is an expert in personal privacy, security and identity theft. Learn more about Carbonite Personal plans. See him discussing identity theft prevention. Disclosures.

Identity Fraud Victim every two Seconds

/in , , , , /by

Yes, identity fraud is SO common that someone becomes a victim every two seconds. The 2014 Identity Fraud Study, as reported on javelinstrategy.com, turned up some alarming results.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-identity-theft-red-words-binary-code-computer-monitor-image39907813Though the dollar amount stolen had decreased over the year preceding the study, the number of victims had increased. People at highest risk were ages 35 to 44.

Account takeover—when the thief takes over a pre-existing account—made up 28 percent of ID fraud losses in 2013. But the greatest risk factor for becoming a victim of identity fraud is the data breach. In that year, 30 percent of people who were notified of a data breach became an ID fraud victim.

Identity fraud is associated with credit cards, but this type of crime can also involve hijacking someone’s PayPal account, or account on Amazon and eBay.

How to Protect Yourself

Javelin Strategy & Research, who conducted the study, recommends the following:

  • Never use public Wi-Fi (at least use a VPN)
  • Shred old sensitive documents.
  • Change the passwords on all of your accounts often.
  • See which accounts offer two-factor authentication, then set it up. This way you’ll know if an unauthorized person is trying to access your account.
  • Use anti-virus and anti-malware software for all of your devices.
  • Monitor your accounts every week. Use mobile apps to stay on top of them.
  • Use direct deposit for payroll checks.
  • Don’t permit your Social Security Number to be used as an authenticating factor, because it can’t be changed, like a username or password can. Ninety-six percent of major credit card issuers and 80 percent of the top 25 banks will permit access to an account via the SSN. You should inform the institution to notate that you will never provide this number to verify your identity.
  • Arrange for your financial institutions to send you alerts (e-mail, text, phone call) when anomalous activity occurs, such as a purchase made in two countries only a few hours apart, or any purchase over a certain amount. Ask about additional forms of fraud detection as well.
  • If you suspect fraud, immediately report it.

If you receive notification of a data breach, you’re at higher risk for fraud; crack down on monitoring your accounts.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention.

Victim overcomes Identity Theft with Art

/in /by

Does your wallet contain enough information about you for someone to steal your identity and commit crimes under your name? That’s what happened to Jessamyn Lovell when Erin Hart stole her wallet in 2011.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-identity-theft-red-words-binary-code-computer-monitor-image39907813Hart shoplifted, checked into hotels and rented cars in Lovell’s name. Of all the nerve.

Lovell tracked Hart down and documented this in “Dear Erin Hart,” a photo project. Lovell couldn’t find the heartless Hart on her own, so she hired a private investigator. Turns out Hart was sitting in jail on numerous charges. Hart served eight months and upon exiting the city lockup, was photographed by Lovell.

That was just the start of stalking Hart. Lovell, the PI and two of his assistants followed the thief around all day, taking pictures of her doing ordinary things like buying cigarettes and shopping at a thrift store. The trail disintegrated after she entered an alley.

Lovell had a chance to confront Hart, but opted not to, concerned that it could turn ugly. But the several thousand dollars that this 2013 venture cost Lovell was worth it.

The following year Lovell, with the PI’s help, found Hart again. And in September 2014, Lovell opened her show at SF Camerawork—the very location of the wallet theft. Lovell is writing a book and hopes to have it out in March this year.

Lovell has also gone as far as sending an e-mail to Hart (via her probation officer), asking for Hart to respond, but Hart has not.

“I just wanted her to know that she impacted a real person,” Lovell says in an article on wired.com.

Lovell actually feels some degree of connection with her identity theif because she grew up poor and figures that Hart is hard up for money (though Hart certainly didn’t need to waste what little money she had on cigarettes). Nevertheless, she has no desire to try to make friends with Hart.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention. Disclosures.

Medical Identity Theft Protection And Prevention

/in /by

Identity theft can be fatal to the victim — if it’s of the medical kind. Medical ID theft can result in getting the wrong blood type during a transfusion, the wrong diagnosis or the wrong prescription — all because the thief’s medical history gets integrated with the victim’s.

4DI hope you’re scared, because that’s my goal.

Up to 43 percent of ID theft is medical, says the Identity Theft Resource Center. The nonfatal fallout of medical identity theft can be quite dastardly, like the crook using your private data to commit other forms of ID theft.

Prevent Medical ID Theft

  • Always review your medical bills. Is a bill for service your child never received?
  • Never give your health insurance card to anyone for their use.
  • Shred medical documents you no longer need, including prescription information.
  • Every year, examine your credit report from the big three outfits.
  • Give your health insurance card the same protection you’d give a credit card. Contact your insurance company asap if it gets lost. In police reports, include it as a loss if it’s stolen.
  • If news breaks of a data breach involving a company you use, inquire about this.
  • Be especially alert to reviewing documents if you’ve been receiving extensive medical treatment.

Suspicious Activity

  • Call the provider and insurance carrier if you spot an unfamiliar charge on a medical bill.
  • Save all relevant documents and record the names of every person you connect with and the dates.
  • Contact the big three credit reporting agencies.
  • Filing a police report may be necessary.
  • If you’ve already been the victim of medical ID theft, inquire about the accuracy of your records with your provider, and request a copy of the records.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247. Disclosures.

Why Child Identity Theft is Dangerous

/in /by

Identity theft in the form of new account fraud can happen to anyone with a Social Security number, which includes virtually any American with a pulse…as well as some who no longer do. Identity theft can even happen to your newborn baby shortly after a Social Security number has been issued to him or her and this could have long term implications for your child.

Within days of your child’s birth, you typically sign documentation prior to being released from the hospital, and a Social Security number is issued within a few weeks. That number is promptly distributed to many entities: the U.S. Social Security Administration, the hospital, your doctors’ offices, your insurance company, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)—and anyone who has access to the relevant documents or files can also gain access to a person’s identity.

There is a growing trend among identity thieves to steal the identities of children, especially infants because it is unlikely that your child or you as parent, will be checking their credit report, since they are too young to talk let alone have a credit card. Child identity theft occurs when the identity of someone under the age of 18 is compromised. When this occurs, the child’s Social Security number is used to open up new accounts. The new accounts opened could be anything from credit cards to bank loans to automobile loans.

Your child’s records represent a clean slate for the criminal and it usually takes years before the theft is discovered. Often, the first time victims discover that their identity was stolen is when they engage in their first financial transaction and try to establish credit by, for example, purchasing a cell phone or buying a car.

There have been far too many instances of parents receiving a call from a bill collector informing you that your two-year-old bought a Mercedes and defaulted on a loan. Or perhaps law enforcement may come knocking on your door to inquire about crimes committed by your newborn child. So besides damaged credit, you child could have income tax liability or a criminal record as the result of identity theft.

The best protection against child identity theft is comprehensive device security, like McAfee LiveSafe™ service, along with filing a fraud alert with the credit bureaus every quarter with the hope that you are denied, because a credit report doesn’t exist—means your child’s identity is still safe. As parents we need to be vigilant about protecting our own and our kids’ information.

Robert Siciliano is an Online Security Expert to McAfee. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Mobile was Hacked!  Disclosures.

The Evolution Of Online Fraud Prevention

/in /by

Around 1994, when I operated a small mail order catalog business, it was very difficult to obtain “merchant status,” or approval to accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express cards. It was easier if you had a storefront, but payment processors made mail order businesses jump through more hoops.

Their main concern was that companies could set up shop, accept tons of credit card charges, and then vanish, leaving the banks short. Mail order fraud was also big. A stolen credit card could be used to place orders over the phone, and when the fraudulent charges were discovered, merchants would suffer from chargebacks.

At the time, it wasn’t even necessary to provide a correct expiration date, as long as the card wasn’t already expired. Then credit card companies began verifying billing addresses to authenticate mail orders. Eventually, an additional verification code was added to cards, referred to as a CVC or CVV. We still use these codes today, but they can be fraudulently obtained in a number of ways.

When merchants moved from catalogs to websites, IP addresses were used to track transactions. But bad guys figured out how to spoof them.

Now we have a number of new technologies designed to fight credit card fraud. The most effective and widely implemented is device reputation, an effective online fraud prevention method that helps protect retailers from fraudulent CNP transactions by examining the computer or other device for a history of unwanted behavior, plus any suspicious activity at the time of transaction.

If a customer’s PC, smartphone, or tablet indicates an abnormally high level of risk, the merchant can reject the purchase in advance. iovation, the global leader in device reputation, flagged 35 million online transactions as high-risk in the last year for its clients and will flag 50 million or more by the end of 2011.

Protect yourself from credit card fraud by checking your statements regularly. Set up your own email alerts so that at a minimum, you are notified of any transactions over your specified amount occur on your account.  Businesses set up triggers and alerts to protect themselves, shouldn’t you?

Robert Siciliano, personal security and identity theft expert contributor to iovation, discusses credit and debit card fraud on CNBC. Disclosures

How Is All This Hacking Affecting My Identity?

/in /by

Without question, 2011 is the year for hackers of all kinds to get their 15 minutes of fame. But it feels like it’s lasting a lot longer than 15 minutes. With so many different breeds of hackers, each with their own agenda and an endless supply of potential targets, the media has certainly been more than willing to give them all the attention they could possibly want.

Major publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Forbes, seem to have journalists working fulltime to cover the hacker chronicles. Significant players and events like Wikileaks, HB Gary, Anonymous, Lulz, IMF, Sony, RSA, Epsilon, the News of The World voicemail hacking scandal in Britain, and so many others have helped bring data security and identity theft issues to the forefront of the public’s attention. Much of the coverage has been sensationalist, but the reality is that we are indeed hemorrhaging information all over the place.

Initially, hackers went after sensitive personal data like Social Security numbers. Then they moved on to credit card numbers and bank account numbers, and then usernames and passwords. Military records have been breached, corporate emails have been exposed, and there have been targeted attacks on government records. At one point last year, the total number of records breached hovered around half a billion. But if we were to broaden the definition of what counts as a breached record, I’d guess that number would have to quadruple, at least.

No matter how you slice it, your information is at risk, whether it’s on your own PC or some other computer or database somewhere. It isn’t a matter of if but when you’ll receive a letter from some company saying they were breached and you are at risk.

In security, as in sports, is the best defense is a good offense. The worst thing you can do now is nothing.

To ensure peace of mind, subscribe to an identity theft protection service, such as McAfee Identity Protection, which offers proactive identity surveillance and lost wallet protection. If your credit or debit cards are ever lost, stolen or misused without your authorization, you can call McAfee Identity Protection and they’ll help you cancel them and order new ones. If their product fails, you’ll be reimbursed for any stolen funds not covered by your bank or credit card company. (See Guarantee for details.) For additional tips, please visit CounterIdentityTheft.com.

Robert Siciliano is a McAfee consultant and identity theft expert. See him discuss the Epsilon breach on Fox News. (Disclosures)

Bill Would Remove Social Security Numbers From Medicare Cards

/in /by

The most basic advice for protecting your own identity is to protect your Social Security number. The obvious solution is simply never to disclose your number, but this is silly, since, depending on your age, you have probably provided it to hundreds of people, on hundreds of forms. It now sits in hundreds of databases, accessible to thousands, and possibly even available for sale.

40 million Medicare subscribers currently have their Social Security numbers printed on their Medicare cards. This means that their identities are at risk every time they hand over their cards, and in the event that any of their wallets are ever stolen.

The proposed “Social Security Number Protection Act” would resolve this issue by prohibiting Social Security numbers from appearing on Medicare cards or on any communications to Medicare beneficiaries, as well as requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to eliminate the unnecessary collection of Social Security numbers.

Social security numbers should certainly be removed from Medicare cards and any other cards, for that matter. But while this bill is a step in the right direction, it cannot protect any of those 40 million subscribers from future fraud.

Only identity theft protection, in combination with a credit freeze, will begin to protect citizens from the new account fraud associated with stolen Social Security numbers.

With more than 11 million victims last year alone, identity theft is a serious concern. McAfee Identity Protection offers proactive identity surveillance, lost wallet protection, and alerts when suspicious activity is detected on your financial accounts. Educate and protect yourself – please visit CounterIdentityTheft.com.

Robert Siciliano is a McAfee consultant and identity theft expert. See him discuss how to protect yourself from identity theft on CounterIdentityTheft.com. (Disclosures)

Researchers Say Identity Theft Has Lasting Psychological Effects

/in /by

Identity theft victims don’t need Jessica Van Vliet, an assistant professor in counseling psychology at the University of Alberta, to tell them that they no longer feel safe when conducting everyday financial transactions, which most of us take for granted. But she did a study highlighting a fact that many of us in the industry have already known: identity theft makes a mess out of your life.

MedicalExpress.com reports, “Van Vliet recently conducted an exploratory study on the experiences of individuals who were victims of identity theft. Participants who recounted their experience during in-depth research interviews expressed a pervasive sense of vulnerability each time they use a credit card or a bank machine. Some participants also felt like they were being treated as criminals when they attempted to clear their names.”

Most of the identity theft victims felt they had been taking appropriate precautions to safeguard their personal information, and had no idea how their data fell into the wrong hands. The lack of specifics makes it difficult for victims to attain any closure and move forward. “No matter how well they monitor their financial records for the rest of their lives, they may still feel vulnerable,” Van Vliet says.

I’ve lost count of how many frantic emails and phone calls I’ve received from identity theft victims. These are people who have done all the right things to maintain a respectable position in society, only to be brought down by a vicious identity thief.

Over and over again I have stressed the importance of being proactive. You don’t want this happening to you. McAfee Identity Protection includes proactive identity surveillance to monitor subscribers’ credit and personal information, as well as access to live fraud resolution agents who can help subscribers resolve identity theft issues. For additional tips, please visit CounterIdentityTheft.com.

Robert Siciliano is a McAfee consultant and identity theft expert. See him explain how a person becomes an identity theft victim on CounterIdentityTheft.com (Disclosures)