To minimize the amount of your personal information bought and sold on the data market, begin “opting out”.  Opting out is the process of notifying organizations that collect your personal information to stop sharing it with other organizations. “Pre-approved” credit card offers (i.e., financial junk mail) are a major source of identity theft. Those mailers give thieves an easy way to set up credit card accounts in your name without your consent. They spend money on the card and default on the balance, leaving you with the mess of proving that you didn’t make the purchases. The solution is to opt out of receiving pre-approved credit, home loan and insurance offers as well as mass marketing databases.

Pre-approved credit offers (also called pre-screened or pre-qualified credit offers) are possible because credit reporting bureaus (Experian, Equifax and Trans Union – companies that collect and sell financial data on nearly every American) make a great deal of money selling your identity (i.e., name, address, phone number, age, credit score) to credit card, loan and insurance companies.  But it is your right to stop the sale of your information.

Fortunately, there are ways for you to “opt-out” of widespread information sharing (see the list of more than 120 ways below).

The Top 4 Opt-Out Opportunities:

1. www.OptOutPreScreen.com. Remove yourself from the marketing lists sold by the three major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. There is not cost for this list.
2. www.DMAchoice.org. This puts you on a Do Not Mail list for the Direct Marketing Association. The cost is $1, but it is well worth the instant trip down in your mail.
3. White Pages. That’s right, your old-fashioned printed phone directory is the source for most of the online contact info databases. Remove your directory listing (you will likely have to the phone company every month to have your info NOT shared – I know, it’s asinine) or otherwise opt out.
4. www.Spokeo.com. To opt out, read this blog post about removing your info from Spokeo. This is one of the more utilized sites by identity thieves, stalkers and scammers.

There is a slower and more tedious process of opting out of online directories (i.e., you have to visit every one. Some (Spokeo.com)  are more important than others (Whitepages.com) because of the information that they collect. Sites such as Spokeo.com can have as much information as your physical address and pictures of your home, while others may just house your phone number. These sites spend hours upon hours scouring public records such as marriage licenses, birth certificates, and real estate purchases for this type of information.

Since most online directories typically offer a way to opt out of their listings you would think they would make it easy. Not so. They tend to hide this option deep within the site, as they don’t actually want you to leave. Luckily, The Privacy Rights Clearing House has done most of the legwork in their Comprehensive Opt Out List. I suggest starting with a few main sites, 123people.com, spokeo.com, etc. and continuously adding to it over time. Opt out of one a week if you like, and eventually your data will be less exposed. Protecting your privacy and identity is a layering process. It is easy for people to get overwhelmed, especially when it comes to online directories.

John Sileo is an award-winning author and international speaker on the dark art of deception (identity theft, data privacy, social media manipulation) and its polar opposite, the powerful use of trust, to achieve success. He is CEO of The Sileo Group, which advises teams on how to multiply performance by building a culture of deep trust. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer, the FDIC, and Homeland Security. Sample his Keynote Presentation (he shares how he lost $300,000, 2 years and his business to data breach) or watch him on Anderson Cooper, 60 Minutes or Fox Business. 1.800.258.8076.

Related posts:

1. Opting Out of Financial Junk Mail
2. Protect Yourself Against Mail Fraud
3. Protect Your Taxes from Prying & Spying Eyes

• Are iPhones, Droids and BlackBerry mobile phones secure enough to be used for sensitive business?
• What is App Hijacking and how do I keep it from stealing all of my GPS coordinates, contacts, logins and emails?
• Given that laptops account for almost 50% of workplace data theft, how do I protect myself and my company?
• Are Wi-Fi Hot Spots a recipie for data hijacking disaster and what is the alternative?
• How do I protect my personal and professional files that live in the cloud (Gmail, DropBox)?

Free Webinar - Cyber Attack: Data Defense for Your Mobile Office

In the information economy, tools like the iPad, WiFi and smartphones have shifted the competitive landscape in favor of mobile-savvy businesses. But are you in control of your information, or are you being controlled? Learn how to be in control of your critical information while protecting your business’ mobile-digital assets.

This Webinar series, sponsored by Deluxe®, is a multi-part interactive Webinar series designed to address these topics and provide simple, actionable tools to protect and enhance the efficiency with which you run your business.

In this class, Cyber Attack: Data Defense for your Mobile Office, you will learn how to:

• Protect smartphones and tablets from common attacks, including app hijacking, Wi-fi Sniffing, Link Jacking and other criminal tools.
• Weigh the pros and cons of cloud-computing model (Gmail, SalesForce, online billing).
• Lock down Wi-Fi data leakage in the office and on the road.
• Protect your traveling office in hotel rooms, airports and off-site offices

Interactive Q & A to follow. All registrants will receive a FREE Whitepaper after the webinar.

 Download to Calendar

Related posts:

1. 4 Critical Steps to Mobile Security (iPhones, iPads, Laptops)
2. Business Killers: Identity Theft and Data Breach Protection FREE WEBINAR
3. Cyber Security Expert Sileo in USA Today

If you received an iPad for the holidays (or already have one), you own the most powerful productivity tool invented in the last 20 years – it’s like command central for your life and work. I use the iPad as a step-by-step, centralized way to keep tabs on everything related to my business. Over a cup of coffee, I consume highly-relevant information (no Angry Birds at this point in the day) in a low-stress way simply by clicking through my iPad apps in a consciously prioritized order. I’m not actually taking action on anything at this point, just getting an overview of the appointments, current events, and communications that will make me more effective. That way, when I get down to work,  I know exactly what should get my attention. The routine is always the same, so I never have to remember what I need to do except to open my iPad before I officially start the day. The process takes me about 20 minutes, and by the time I get to work, my brain has sorted most of the information and knows where to start. Here’s how I consciously prioritize my apps (see screen shot):

1. Calendar (iCal). I look at my calendar first to remind myself of appointments taking place that day.
2. Project Planner (OmniFocus). I use OmniFocus to organize larger projects. It is a great way to do a brain dump of all of the little tasks that clutter my creative thinking. These project lists are shared with my team and give us a centralized way to track and prioritize our business.
3. Event Management (eSpeakers and SalesForce). Because I speak professionally as my main source of revenue, I utilize an industry specific app called eSpeakers that tracks every aspect of my speaking engagements. In 30 seconds, I have a quick view of what speeches are on the horizon and what tasks need to be completed. Since this is a revenue center of my business, I want to keep very close tabs on what is taking place. SalesForce is for leads, accounts and contact management.
4.  News (local paper, USA Today, Zite, Instapaper, NPR). Once I have a view of the day ahead, I skim the news (general and industry specific) to determine if there are any stories I need to pay closer attention to. This isn’t a complete reading, just to put it on my radar.
5. Note Taking (Evernote). I use Evernote as a clearing house for all of the notes I take, whether it’s an article, random thoughts, etc. By keeping my note taking app close to the news apps, I record anything highly relevant.
6. Social Networking (HootSuite). I use HootSuite to monitor my Facebook Fan Page, Twitter Feed and LinkedIn Profile. I might quickly post an interesting piece of current news in my field or an upcoming event or media appearance. I do NO personal updates at this point in the day. Business only.
7. Email. Email always seems like the most important task, but I find it to be distracting. I leave it until last and simply read through all emails and flag them for later work. If they require more than a three word answer, I don’t use my iPad to communicate. I do this once I am sitting at my computer; in the meantime, my subconscious has generally come up with the necessary responses.

7 Simple Security Settings for Your iPad

1. Turn On Passcode Lock. Your iPad is just as powerful as your laptop or desktop, protect it like one. Your iPad is only encrypted when you enable the passcode feature. (Settings/General)
2. Turn Simple Passcode to Off. Why use only an easy to crack 4-digit passcode when you can implement a full-fledged alphanumeric password? If you can tap out short emails, why not spend 5 seconds on a proper password.
3. Require Passcode Immediately. It is slightly inconvenient and considerably more secure to have your iPad automatically lock up into passcode mode anytime you leave it alone for a few minutes.
4. Set Auto Lock to 2 Minutes. Why give the table thief at your favorite café more time to modify your settings to his advantage (to keep it from locking) as he walks out the door with your bank logins, emails and kid pictures.
5. Turn Erase Data after 10 Tries to On. Even the most sophisticated passcode-cracking software can’t get it done in 10 tries or less. This setting wipes out your data after too many failed attempts. Just make sure your kids don’t accidentally wipe out your iPad (forcing you to restore from your latest iTunes backup).
6. Use a Password Manager. Your passwords are only as affective as your ability to use them wisely (they need to be long and different for every site). Keeping your passwords in an unencrypted keychain or document is a recipe for complete financial disaster. Download a reputable password-protection app to manage and protect any sensitive passwords, credit card numbers, software licenses, etc. Not only is it safe, it’s incredibly convenient and efficient.
7. Avoid Untrustworthy Apps. Not all applications are friendly. Despite Apple’s well-designed vetting process, there are still malicious apps that slip through the cracks to siphon data out of your device. If the app hasn’t been around for a while and if you haven’t read about it in a reputable journal (Macworld, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc.), don’t load it onto your system. 

It will only take a minute to implement these steps and will encourage thieves to move on to the next victim.

John Sileo is an award-winning author and speaks worldwide on the dark art of deception (identity theft, data privacy, social media manipulation) and it’s polar opposite, the powerful use of trust, to achieve success. He is CEO of The Sileo Group, which advises teams on how to multiply results and increase performance. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer, the FDIC, and Homeland Security. Contact him on 800.258.8076 or learn more at ThinkLikeASpy.com.

Related posts:

1. iPad Vampires: 7 Simple Security Settings to Stop Data Suckers
2. iPad & Tablet Users Asking for Identity Theft
3. 7 Steps to Secure Profitable Business Data (Part I)

A new study produced by The Ponemon Institute and ThreatMetrix (Mobile Payments & Online Shopping – October 2011) states that only 29% of consumers use mobile banking apps on their smart phones and tablets. Of those that don’t participate, 51% cite security reasons for their lack of participation. In other words, consumers like you and I are not yet comfortable with mobile banking. And our instincts are correct! Why shouldn’t you be comfortable with mobile banking appsquite yet?

Top 7 Reasons Why Mobile Banking Apps Aren’t Yet Safe

1. Because most app stores (e.g., Android Marketplace) don’t review apps for security, it is very easy for criminals to post malicious apps that steal information from your mobile device (like your bank account numbers).
2. The average smartphone or tablet user has installed no security software on their mini-computer (that’s what smartphones and tablets are), meaning that they have only a fraction of the security of a laptop or desktop.
3. Detected malware developed for the Android platform alone has increased by 400% in the past year.
4. The technology that keeps apps separate on your smartphone or tablet doesn’t separate them out into private sandboxes, meaning that one app can read the juicy details stored in the other without much difficulty.
5. Most smartphone and tablet users don’t even have a basic passcode set up on their device, giving anyone with access to it potential access to your bank account.
6. The temptation to use free WiFi hotspots at cafes, airports and hotels lures people into banking over insecure networks (it’s easy to sniff (spy on) what you send over these free, unprotected networks.
7. There is no clear legislation (that I have seen) governing your rights to receive a refund if your bank account is fraudulently emptied due to mobile bank app insecurity. Is the burden of proof on the user to protect their handset and software, or on the bank. Only precedent and real live court cases will answer this question over time.

Will mobile banking apps one day provide a secure, viable form of online banking? Absolutely. Are we there yet. No way.

John Sileo is a keynote financial speaker on topics including identity theft, cyber security, fraud trends and trust. His clients include the Pentagon, FDIC, Experian, Pfizer and Homeland Security. Bring him in to motivate data security within your organization. 1.800.258.8076.

Related posts:

1. Is Online Banking Safe from Identity Theft?
2. Trojan Apps Hijack Android App Store
3. Mobile Security Webinar: Defending SmartPhones, iPads, Laptops Against Cyber Attacks

And like anything with that much power, there are risks. Using this type of syncing and backup service without understanding the risks and rewards is like driving a Ducati motorcycle without peering into the crystal ball of accidents that take the lives of bikers every year. If you are going to ride the machine, know your limits.

This week, Dropbox appears to have altered their user agreement (without any notice to its users), making it a FAR LESS SECURE SERVICE. Initially, their privacy policy stated:

… all files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES-256) and are inaccessible without your account password. (Quoted from PCWorl)

Currently, the privacy policy says that Dropbox can access and view your encrypted data, and it might do so to share information with law enforcement. Why is that important? Because it means that the encryption keys that keep your files private are actually stored on Dropbox’s server, not on your own computer. This puts the keys to your data (and every other Dropbox user) in the hands not only of Dropbox employees and law enforcement, but vulnerable to hackers. When the encryption key is located on your computer, at least the risk is spread over Dropbox’s user’s network.

But there is an even bigger issue that this exposes about the world of cloud computing in general: anytime your data lives on a device that you don’t own, you lose a certain amount of control over what happens to it. Here is just a sampling of factors that can affect the privacy and confidentiality of your cloud-stored data:

• The cloud service provider changes their Terms of Service (like Dropbox just did) to cover their legal bases, making your data less secure without your even being alerted. This happens almost every week with Facebook, which changes privacy terms constantly. When you log back into your account, you are automatically agreeing to the new Terms of Service (and probably not reading the tens of pages of legal jargon).
• The provider is bought out by a new company (possibly one overseas) or has its assets liquidated (the most valuable assets are generally information), that has different standards for data security and sharing. You, by default, are now covered by those standards.
• The security of your data is weak in the first place. Security costs money, and many smaller cloud providers haven’t invested enough in protecting that data, leaving the door wide open for savvy hackers. SalesForce.com might be well protected, but is the free backup service or contact manager that you use?
• Your data exists in a more public domain than when it is stored on internal, private servers, meaning that it is subject to subpoena without your being notified! In other words, the government and law enforcement has access to it and you will never know they were snooping around. This isn’t a concern for most small businesses, but it is still a cautionary note.

So does this mean we should all shut down our Dropbox, Carbonite, iBackup accounts? No. Does this mean that corporations should not implement the highly scalable, dramatically efficient solutions provided by the cloud? No. It means that both individuals and businesses must educate themselves on the up and down sides of this shift in computing. They can  begin the process by realizing that:

1. Not all data is created equal and that some types of sensitive data should never be placed in someone else’s control. This is exactly why there are data classification systems (I subscribe to those used by the military and spy agencies: Public, Internal, Confidential and Top Secret).
2. Not all cloud providers are created equal and you must understand the privacy policy, terms of service and track record of each one individually (just like you would choose a car with a better crash-test rating for your family).
3. Anything of immense power comes with costs, and those costs must be calculated into the relative ROI of the equation. In other words, the answer here, like most complex things in life, exists in the gray area, not in a black or white, one-size-fits all generalization.

John Sileo writes and speaks on Information Leadership, including identity theft prevention, data breach, social media risk and online reputation. His clients include the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, the Federal Reserve Bank, FDIC, FTC and hundreds of corporations of all sizes. Learn more about his motivational data security events.

Related posts:

1. 7 Steps to Secure Profitable Business Data (Part II)
2. Are You Begging to Get Fired?
3. Information Offense – How Google Plays

After a financial conference speech I gave this afternoon on controlling social media data exposure, an executive asked me how long I’d been giving motivational keynote speeches.

My jaw dropped at the reference… “Motivational keynote speeches?”, I asked. “I’ve never really thought of myself as a motivational speaker. I’m more of a content speaker who focuses your organization on playing information offense… using and protecting information to your profitable advantage.” Yeah, I know, sounds like an elevator speech. It was.

The executive then explained his remarks in a very thoughtful way. He said that his organization had stopped hiring traditional “fluffy motivational speakers” when the economy went south, and now only hires content-rich speakers who motivate the audience to take action in a very specific area of need. If he and the rest of the audience came out of the speech ready to take action and clear on what steps to take next, then they referred the speech as motivational. “Every speaker we hire had better be motivational,” he said, “but that’s a given. We bring in a keynoter for their content, and they’d better bring their inspirational A-game as part of the package.”

His point is a good one. Motivation is not about giving individuals in the audience the motivation to do everything they need to do – work smarter, sell more, exercise, be a better person, give back to their community, live with integrity, etc., it’s about getting them to do what you need them to do. The average corporation doesn’t have the kind of resources necessary to take broadly motivational brush strokes (self-help), and even the best speakers can’t accomplish so much change in just an hour. The end game isn’t to make an audience of generically motivated attendees, but to motivate them to take very specific steps toward a worthy cause (and one that you have
defined). In my case, the cause was to help audience members understand some of the risks and rewards inherent in social networking technology, mobile data access and cloud computing. That they considered my speech to be motivational is gravy; that they learned something and have concrete next steps to take when the conference is over – well, that’s just my job.

Watch John Sileo in action (above), listen to audience testimonials (left), learn more about content-rich motivational keynote speeches, or read about his personal experiences with data theft and how they lead him down the keynote speaking path and into the conference rooms of the Department of Defense, FDIC, Pfizer Homeland Security and others.

Related posts:

1. Identity Theft Speech at the FTC – Removing the Black Belt
2. Certified Speaking Professional – Sileo Earns CSP from National Speakers Association
3. 7 Steps to Secure Profitable Business Data (Part I)

Huzzah! The holiday party season has officially begun! It is my favorite time of year because I try to take a few weeks off of the professional speaking circuit to slow down to a normal pace. Over the coming weeks, all of the Whos in Whoville gather to celebrate the communities to which we all belong. Whether it is a neighborhood party, a work celebration or an association shindig (okay, I’m starting to use words that my parents use), it is a great time to honor our friendships, colleagues and causes.

Unfortunately, the abundance of the season attracts malcontents who try to take advantage of our happiness and busy-ness. I call this the Grinch Effect: stealing from others while they are lost in a brief moment of joy. Like the Grinch pilfering the last stocking from the fireplace, identity thieves use our distraction to pluck pieces of private data from our festive homes. Enough already! If you are hosting a holiday party (either at your  home or in your office), here are some tips on protecting your identity to foster holiday serenity:

Protecting Your Home or Office from Holiday Identity Thieves

• Know how the Grinch cases your Whobitat (your home, office or other holiday abode). Identity thieves are looking for documents, check books, credit cards, disks, computers, thumb drives, filing cabinets, sensitive trash, mail, purses, wallets, offices, cluttered desks, safes, cell phones and all other receptacles of identity. Fortunately, we tend to keep most of these items in only a few places in our homes, and a majority of that tends to be in a home office.
• I find it easiest to centralize all potential sources of identity into one place, like my office, which has a lock on it. Before company arrives, I lock the office door and it remains locked during the entire party. That way, when a potential thief disappears upstairs (ostensibly to “see the house”), you don’t have to worry about it. Yes, the office (or other lockable room) will be cluttered and filled with piles of mail, documents, computers and other data, but it is worth it!
• At this point in the year, if you haven’t taken time to protect your identity in small steps like I recommend in Privacy Means Profit (fire safes, archival shredding, computer lock-downs, etc.), don’t try to start better privacy habits now. The holiday season is too busy to add this to the list, so improvise (lock it all up in one place) and make it your New Year’s resolution to start properly protecting your privacy. If your home or office is too cluttered to get rid of all of the sensitive information, you probably shouldn’t be hosting the party.
• Ignore the voice inside of your head saying that your friends, family, co-workers and colleagues wouldn’t possibly steal data from you. You are probably right, but a large percentage of all serious identity theft is committed by a Grinch we know. I hear hundreds of stories a year at my speaking engagements where friends and relatives end up being the thief (not to mention that it was one of my closest friends who stole from me). You don’t have to assume the worst about your guests, just simply don’t assume anything and don’t leave it to chance. This is not about them, it’s about your privacy.
• Store your guests identity safely while they are at the party. One of the greatest sources of holiday-party identity theft is the pile of purses and coats that gather in one remote part of the house (usually the upstairs master bedroom, for whatever reason). You don’t want to have to lock this room and allow access like a miserly Scrooge (and become an absent host), so I suggest another alternative. Store purses and coats in a high traffic, plain site location. People are less likely to pilfer when others are in sight. If a guest is uncomfortable with this solution (in all honesty, the average guest won’t even be considering the sensitive information in their purse or coat), have them lock their valuables in the trunk of their own car. This is the point at which the paranoia starts to kill the holiday buzz, but it is a viable option.
• If you are a guest in someone else’s home, do them the favor and leave your valuable data at home or in your own trunk.

None of these suggestions should take more than 15-30 minutes to implement. And every one of them could save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars recovering. Unlike the Grinch, most identity thieves don’t return your belongings at the end of the show. Happy Holidays!

John Sileo is the award-winning author of Stolen Lives and Privacy Means Profit (Wiley, August 2010), a professional Financial Speaker and America’s leading identity theft expert. His clients include the Department of Defense, FTC, FDIC and Pfizer; his recent media appearances include 60 Minutes. Contact him on 800.258.8076.

Related posts:

1. Identity Theft Prevention this Holiday Season
2. Identity Theives Don’t Take A Holiday
3. Scrooge’s Top 10 Holiday ID Theft Protection Tips

For businesses, shredding is low-hanging fruit (one of the easiest sources of data breach to eliminate). But businesses are so often focused on electronic forms of data breach that they fail to heed the following statistics highlighted in a recent Ponemon Institute study conducted for the Alliance for Secure Business Information:

• More than 50 percent of sensitive business data is still stored on paper documents.
• Forty-nine percent of data breaches reported in the survey were the result of paper documents.
• Sixty percent of businesses admitted that they didn’t provide the proper tools (e.g., shredders) to safely discard documents that were no longer needed.
• The average data breach recovery cost according to this survey was $6.3 million.

If you own a business, make sure to destroy sensitive documents prior to discarding them, to decrease your legal liability. Businesses are required to destroy all consumer information before discarding it in the trash. The Fair & Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA) Disposal Rule states that ‘‘any person who maintains or otherwise possesses consumer information for a business purpose’’ must properly destroy the information prior to disposal. FACTA further states that every person and/or business must take ‘‘reasonable measures’’ to protect against unauthorized access to the use of the information in connection with its disposal… Click Here to Continue.

Privacy Means Profit

Prevent Identity Theft and Secure You and Your Bottom Line

This book builds a bridge between good personal privacy habits (protect your wallet, online banking, trash, etc.) with the skills and motivation to protect workplace data (bulletproof your laptop, server, hiring policies, etc.).

In Privacy Means Profit, John Sileo demonstrates how to keep data theft from destroying your bottom line, both personally and professionally. In addition to sharing his gripping tale of losing $300,000 and his business to data breach, John writes about the risks posed by social media, travel theft, workplace identity theft, and how to keep it from happening to you and your business.

Related posts:

1. Workplace Identity Theft Economies of Scale
2. Document Shredding
3. Identity Theft for Businesses: Mobile Data Breach

Privacy Means Profit (Wiley) available in bookstores today!

Here are The Top 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Buy It:

You love sharing bank account numbers, surfing habits and customer data with cyber thieves over unprotected wireless networks

You never tempt hackers and con artists by using Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Docs, or other cloud computing platforms to store or communicate private info, personally or professionally.

You bury your head in the sand, insisting that “insider theft” won’t affect your home or business.

You’ve already hardened your laptops and other mobile computing devices in 7 vital ways,  eliminating a major source of both personal and corporate data theft.

You have a “thing” for identity theft recovery costs and would rather invest thousands in recovery than $25 in prevention.

If you want to defend yourself and your business against identity theft, data breach and corporate espionage, then buy a copy of Privacy Means Profit.

Privacy Means Profit

Prevent Identity Theft and Secure You and Your Bottom Line

Privacy Means Profit builds a bridge between good personal privacy habits (protect your wallet, online banking, trash, etc.) with the skills and motivation to protect workplace data (bulletproof your laptop, server, hiring policies, etc.).

In Privacy Means Profit, John Sileo demonstrates how to keep data theft from destroying your bottom line, both personally and professionally. In addition to sharing his gripping tale of losing $300,000 and his business to data breach, John writes about the risks posed by social media, travel theft, workplace identity theft, and how to keep it from happening to you and your business.

Related posts:

1. Top 5 Reasons Corporations Educate Employees on Identity Theft
2. Workplace Identity Theft: Shredding
3. 5 Steps to Good Privacy Habits

CSIdentity Protector Tri-Bureau

Only 25%  of identity theft can be detected by traditional credit report monitoring, which means that you need a more sophisticated service than the average offering (LifeLock). If you are time starved, convenience based or just simply want a comprehensive way to detect the inappropriate use of your data, you need to enlist an identity monitoring service. It’s similar to having someone monitor your home alarm system.

Here’s a bit of background. Traditional credit monitoring only detects a portion of identity theft. The remaining theft happens on non-credit loan activities (pay-day loans, etc), as part of public records (court cases, real estate transactions, government filings, etc.), over the internet (bought and sold on identity-for-sale sites), or in relation to medical or criminal records. It is important to monitor these forms of potential identity theft as well as your credit file. CSIdentity’s Protector Tri-Bureau product wins the award for Best-in-Class identity monitoring based on 7 criteria:

1. Convenience: It emails me any time a red flag appears, meaning that I don’t have to do any extra work to keep track of my identity;
2. Technical Excellence: The engine under their surveillance hood is superior, providing a deeper scan of risks and therefore a higher chance of detecting fraud;
3. Depth of Monitoring: The service monitors your credit report at all three credit reporting bureaus as well as scanning non-credit loans (pay-day check schemes);
4. Public Document Surveillance: It monitors your public records on the internet (court documents, govt filings, etc.) in case your information is published for any reason by the government;
5. Cyber-threat Detection: It combs the internet for the buying and selling of your individual identity to minimize your data being circulated through carder sites;
6. Restoration Services: It provides IN HOUSE restoration services if your identity is stolen, meaning that you aren’t dealing with a third party in the case of theft;
7. Industry Leadership: The executives at CSIdentity are some of the smartest people I have met, and have a proven track record of being honest, trustworthy thought leaders. I wouldn’t allow them access into my personal data if I didn’t completely trust them.

Here’s how it works. Rather than waste hours monitoring all of the different potential sources of identity theft myself, CSIdentity does it for me, automatically. In addition to 24/7 credit monitoring, pay-day loan fraud, public record monitoring and theft insurance and restoration services, their CyberAgent technology monitors the internet for instances of my identity being bought and sold online. Every month, a report shows up in my email inbox letting me know if there are any areas that I should be concerned about.

If you decide to try out CSIdentity’s Protector Tri-Bureau Monitoring, enter the promotion code CSIDFRIEND at the top of the screen (this gives you a $39 discount). I receive no money if you use this code – it only benefits you.

To reiterate, no matter what Identity Monitoring Service you end up using, they should provide the following tools:
•    3-in-1 Credit Monitoring
•    Court Record Monitoring
•    Public Record Monitoring
•    Non-credit loan monitoring
•    Internet Surveillance
•    Sex Offender Reports
•    Identity Theft Insurance
•    Identity Theft Restoration Services performed in-house

Related posts:

1. LifeLock Identity Monitoring a Fraud?
2. Identity Monitoring: Credit Alerts Not Enough
3. LifeLock’s New Identity (Theft Monitoring)