Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo on Traveling Safety.

Traveling Safety has become a study of its own ever since the advent of identity theft. Your biggest concern may no longer be physical in nature (pickpockets, hotel theft, muggings); the value of the personal identity you carry as you travel is worth far more than the cash in your wallet.

We all love to plan the vacation of our dreams. I can almost taste the pasta Bolognese as I read about that out-of-the way trattoria half way down the ancient narrow vicolo (blind alley) in Tuscany. But there’s one area we often overlook that can turn that long-anticipated dinner into a nightmare – the theft of our most-valuable asset, our identity. Let’s fast forward – we’ve savored the last bite of pasta and drained our pitcher of the vino rosso locale before presenting our credit card.   Our friendly waiter looks concerned as he walks back to our table to tell us that our credit card has been declined. It doesn’t take us long to discover a thief has maxed out our credit and there is nothing left to pay for our dream. If we’re lucky, we’ll have a backup plan and pay by cash or another credit card. If we are less lucky, the thief has cashed out our bank account as well, has stolen our passport numbers to set up new accounts, or has gained access to a laptop computer full of sensitive personal and workplace data. What were we thinking (or not thinking) by neglecting traveling safety?

The TJX security data breach is our fault.

TJX Cos. has been ordered to pay $9.75M in a data breach security lawsuit. The data breach settlement will be awarded to 41 states because TJX failed to protect customers’ financial information from a massive computer breach announced in 2007 that exposed millions of customers’ personal and credit card data to hackers.

The settlement amount is probably the largest ever, and it is comically low.

TJX lost somewhere between 40 and 90 million customer records, and there is a good chance yours was one of them if you shop at T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods or A.J. Wright. If only 10% of those breached records were ever used to commit identity fraud (let’s say 7.5 million records, to be conservative), at the average cost of identity theft recovery ($700), the damage to you and me is approximately $490 Million. So TJX paid about a 2% penalty for failing to protect our data. They value the safety of our being a customer at about 2%. They care about their own profits about 98%.

Security awareness programs (data security education) are drastically lacking in American corporations, and it is leading to an increase in data breach and workplace identity theft.

Look at these numbers about employee data security just released by the Ponemon Institute. They appeared in a post by the Ponemon Institute’s Founder, Larry Ponemon (the quote is theirs, the emphasis, mine):

Laptop anti-theft, or protecting your mobile data, is a MUST for corporations and consumers. Almost half of workplace identity theft takes place because of mobile data. And the average value of the data on your laptop can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to a corporate spy or experienced identity thief. At the higher end of the scale, the value of the 26 million Veteran identities on a laptop lost over a year ago was estimated to be worth more than $100 million. Those are the types of computer security risks that can make your business unprofitable. But there are solutions.

Broken Window Theory: By removing graffiti and repairing broken windows in crime hot-spots throughout New York City, the NYPD was able to drastically reduce the entire city’s overall crime rate (not just the quantity of graffiti and broken windows), including thefts, burglaries, muggings and murders. In other words, certain actions that we take (e.g., focusing on crime hot-spots rather than on every type of crime) can have a disproportionately positive effect on achieving our goal (e.g., lower crime rates). Business translation: you get a far higher return on investment for certain well-planned tactical strikes than you do for far more expensive strategic initiatives.

My point? In the world of workplace identity theft and corporate data breach, laptop computers are the biggest broken window. Not only do laptops account for a disproportionate amount of data theft, but training the organization to properly protect mobile computers has a radiant effect on all other types of identity protection. Good habits in one area breed good habits in others.

Stop the theft of corporate laptops (or personal laptops with corporate data on them) and you have eliminated approximately 50% of the entire data breach problem at a fraction of the security cost.

Laptop theft generally occurs in transit: airports, hotels,  cars, commuter trains, conferences, off-site meetings, vacations, coffee shops, etc. Build laptop anti-theft training into your organizational culture of privacy:

7 Laptop Anti-Theft Tips for Travelers
Technorati Profile

If I’ve learned one thing as an identity theft expert these past few years, it’s this: As bloggers with something to gain (monetarily) from our daily posts, we do everything we can to veil our advertisements deep within the text. Nearly every blog post has some financial gain tied to it: Google AdWords down the right side of the column, gentle product sales, magazine subscriptions, you name it.

That’s the trade-off: bloggers give you content and in return, you agree to watch our commercials. With a few exceptions (truly altruistic and non-commercial blogs, which do exist), anytime someone tells you that they gain nothing financially from their blog, tell them HOGWASH! They are simply hiding behind their content. When you get something of value, you are paying with something of value. When you read the Wall Street Journal, you agree to at least browse their advertising (however passively). When you read my blog about identity theft prevention, you learn that I speak to corporations and organizations around the world about data breach and identity theft.

So I’m not going to even try and conceal the commercial nature of this post: the very hilarious and very famous Larry Winget endorsed me as a speaker. I tell you for one reason: to get you to hire me as an identity theft expert and identity theft speaker, and to hire Business Humorist Larry Winget. Period. Let us expose your audience to messages of financial responsibility and financial privacy before they bring their poor habits into your organization.