Latest Posts
Why Facebook is Losing Face (Trust)
Do you have a nagging sense that Facebook isn’t always straight with you about how they share your personal information, photos, posts, friend lists, networks, likes and surfing habits? That they are selling your data in ways that you have never even imagined?
Your instincts are dead on. Facebook has been saying one thing to our faces and doing another behind our backs. Facebook is in pre-IPO mode and has the propaganda machine running overtime like Big Brother at an Animal Farm.
Enter the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC just released a formal complaint identifying eight counts against Facebook for violating the Federal Trade Commission Act. The FTC confirmed what we’ve always known: Facebook tells us what they think we want to hear, not necessarily the truth. Here are the details of Facebook’s dishonesty:
- Under the guise of increasing user privacy, Facebook has consistently provided their advertisers with ever-expanding access to sensitive user information, not less.
- Contrary to Facebook’s marketing machine, user profiles are assigned a unique User ID that allows applications (e.g. Farmville) to track us as individuals, not as anonymous, aggregated members of a group.
- Even if you restrict all applications’ access to your data, your friends can install applications that allow Facebook to expose your personal information without your consent or knowledge.
Business Killers: Identity Theft and Data Breach Protection FREE WEBINAR
Business Killers: Identity Theft and Data Breach Protection Webinar on November 10
On November 10, I will host an interactive webinar sponsored by Deluxe that will explore how small businesses can protect themselves from identity theft. As someone who lost more than $300,000 and my small business to identity theft, this is a topic I care about deeply. In addition to delivering keynote speeches at conferences, I also provide consulting and guidance to organizations like the Federal Trade Commission, Pfizer and the Department of Defense on how to best protect the sensitive data inside of their organizations.
Register now for tomorrow’s webinar.
During this multi-part webinar, I will provide simple, actionable tools and advice to help small businesses protect their data and retain information privacy. I’ll also explain how the information economy has shifted the competitive landscape and increased our data exposure. Attendees will learn the following:
- The new reality: information does not equal power
- How to think like a spy and apply critical thinking to the power equation
- Manipulation triggers thieves use against your employees and defense techniques
- Interrogation tools to uncover fraud before it erodes your profits and net worth
- Fraud hotspot best practices
- Trends in data theft
- Holiday identity theft prevention tips
Supercookie Monster Eating Your Privacy for Lunch
You already know that every word you type on your browser is being tracked and used to profile and deliver highly-relevant advertisements to you (Big Brother Lives in Your Browser). And you know that most websites install “cookies” onto your computer in order to store relevant information about you (account numbers) that make surfing more convenient, and to gather information that allows advertisers to know more about you. You probably even know how to delete them.
But new research has shown that deleting cookies doesn’t always help. A new breed of cookies, called supercookies, can reconstruct all of your profile history even after the cookie has been deleted. MSN.com and Hulu.com just got caught using supercookies to track your surfing habits in stealth mode (you have no way of knowing that it’s happening, and you can’t do anything about it). The Wall Street Journal had this to say about supercookies and history stealing:
Hulu and MSN were installing files known as “supercookies,” which are capable of re-creating users’ profiles after people deleted regular cookies… The spread of advanced tracking techniques shows how quickly data-tracking companies are adapting their techniques… ["history stealing"] peers into people’s Web-browsing histories to see if they previously had visited any of more than 1,500 websites, including ones dealing with fertility problems, menopause and credit repair… Supercookies are stored in different places than regular cookies… | WSJ 8/18/11 | Supercookies on WSJ for non-subscribers.
Certified Speaking Professional – Sileo Earns CSP from National Speakers Association
I love my job as a keynote speaker. To be honored as one of only 570 Certified Speaking Professionals on the planet this past month was icing on the cake, and confirmation that we’d finally made it through that which almost destroyed our family.
Just a few years ago I thought I might go to jail for crimes that someone else committed using my identity. I lost nearly everything, including my business, my reputation and lots of money. Who would have thought then that all of the pain we experienced as a family would be turned into a highly satisfying career as an author and professional keynote speaker? Every day I get to go to work with the enviable conviction of empowering people to protect their privacy from identity theft, social media exposure and human manipulation. I get to steer people and corporations away from making the significant mistakes I did. It is vastly fulfilling.
And now, after five hard years on the speaking circuit, to be awarded the CSP by such highly accomplished peers in NSA, the National Speakers Association, satisfies me beyond words. If you’ve heard the details of my story and know how much it cost my family (I was basically absent in their lives for two full years), you’ll especially love how elegantly everything has come full circle. Sophie (my daughter, and the person who woke me out of my victim-induced stupor to become an author and a speaker), whispered to my row of supporters just as I was walking across the stage, “everyone stand up when dad gets his award.”
7 Data Theft Hotspots for Meeting Professionals
Everybody wants your data, especially when you are in the business of meetings. Your data doesn’t just have a high face value (e.g., the attendee data, including credit card numbers that you collect and store in your online registration system), it also has a high resale value .
Here is how the theft is most often committed in your industry:
- Competitors hire one of your employees and they leave with a thumb drive full of confidential files, including client lists, personally identifying information on talent and employees, financial performance data, etc.
- Social engineers (con artists) mine your employee’s Facebook profiles to gain a heightened level of trust which allows them to manipulate your human assets
- Cyber criminals hack your lax computer network or sniff the unprotected wireless connections you and your employees use while traveling (Starbucks, hotels, airports).
- Mobile Computing Thieves target your digital devices (Laptop, smartphone, tablet) and other weak points while on the road.
- Opportunistic Vendors (Cleaning services, painters, landlords) quietly collect data assets from your desks, filing cabinets, trash cans and dumpsters when you aren’t even in the office.
Research is screaming at us—more than 80% of businesses surveyed have already experienced at least one breach (average recovery cost according to the Ponemon Institute: $7.2 million) and have no idea of how to stop a repeat performance.
13 Data Security Tips for Meeting Professionals – SGMP
I just finished delivering a keynote speech for the Society of Government Meeting Professionals (SGMP) at their annual convention on identity theft and protecting data in the meetings industry. Data security is a top concern in this industry because it is probably one of the most highly-targeted groups for identity theft, social media fraud, data breach and social engineering. Here’s why:
- Meeting professionals collect, store and transmit massive amounts of private data on attendees
- Data theft risk skyrockets when travel is involved, which is a frequent occurrence for meeting planners and professionals
- Meeting professionals are busy nearly 24 hours a day once they are onsite for the conference or meeting, meaning that they are highly distracted
- A single data breach of attendee data can put the organization responsible for the event out of business due to excessive costs and tight compliance regulations
- Conferences are generally collections of highly professional, highly valuable attendees who travel with laptops, sensitive intellectual property, smartphones, unsecured WiFi connections, etc.
Meeting professionals have enormous responsibilities throughout every stage of the planning process. Identity thieves target conferences because of the sheer quantity and value of data circulating around these events. Protecting sensitive attendee data before, during and after the event has become not only a nicety, but a necessity. Data stolen during the planning, execution or clean-up phases of your event can hamstring your organization with financial liabilities and a public relations nightmare. Start by taking these steps:
Sileo In the Media
Privacy Project Newsletter
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