College Students Destroy Financial Future with Poor Choices
College is the perfect period of life to begin sound financial practices including protecting privacy. Not only are college students vulnerable, but they are impressionable and well positioned to learn strong habits that will last them a lifetime. As students launch into independence, we, as parents, hope to give them the best tools possible to insure a bright future. One of the most vital tools is to establish healthy habits that will guard their financial and personal identities for the rest of their lives. People ages 18 -24 are the least able to spot identity theft according to the BBB. That age group needed more than four months to realize someone had damaged their credit history or used their identity. By taking a few precautions, a young adult can avoid the crushing job of trying to recover from having given away the keys to their financial future, which is especially overwhelming while navigating life away from home for the first time.
Identity thieves don’t care a whit if the student has a dime – they just want a clean financial record in order to commit crimes using their credit and future buying power. Unfortunately, thieves are often someone the student trusts: a friend, dorm mate, co-worker, or someone who poses as a sanctioned person on campus. Identity thieves may use personal information to open credit card accounts, access financial accounts, rent an apartment or even commit larger cases of fraud, implicating the student. Here are some tips to get you and your student started down the road to protecting their financial future:
If You Hacked into Rupert Murdoch’s Voicemail…
If you hacked into Rupert Murdoch’s voicemail, you would hear the message I just left him:
Thank you , Mr. Murdoch, I owe you one. I’ve spent the past five years trying to convince the world of something you managed to do with one simple scandal. I’m sorry that you will probably lose your reputation and much of your company and wealth because of it (not to mention your self-respect), but the world will be a better place for it. Why? Not just because our phone is ringing non-stop with companies and individuals that want to protect their private information.
It’s because you, Mr. Murdoch, awoke the PRIVACY BEAST! Two weeks ago, no one paid very much attention to voicemails being hacked. The average Facebook user was shrugging off the knowledge that their data was being systematically collected, aggregated and sold to the highest bidder all for Facebook’s financial gain. Android users ignored the warnings that malicious apps disguised as harmless games were funneling their bank account numbers, contact lists and geographic whereabouts to locations in Iran and North Korea. iPhone users continued to load their phones with as much data as a laptop without even password protecting the darn thing. Most of us lived in a comfortable, pitiful, stupor of privacy ignorance. But today, everyone suddenly cares .
Data Breach Expert Sileo Talks to Fox Business
Victim of a Cyber Attack? What You Should Tell Customers
It seems like every day consumers are learning of data breeches from companies like Sega, Sony and Google. Major corporations like these tend to have the funds and resources to recover from an attack, but for small businesses, that’s often not the case.
A slow response and lack of communication with customers are among the missteps many small businesses make when facing an attack, both of which can cause irreparable damage to the business.
“When consumers are a victim of ID fraud based on interaction with a small business, 1 in 3 never come back,” said Phil Blank, senior analyst for security and fraud at Javelin Strategy & Research.
While data breaches hitting major banks and corporations tend to dominate headlines, small businesses are increasingly becoming targets. Hackers like to prey on small businesses because computers and mobile phones tend to be used for both work and personal use, and many small businesses don’t have an IT staff monitoring and protecting operations.
According to Javelin, small business fraud totaled $8 billion in 2010. Of that, banks, merchants and other providers absorbed $5.43 billion of the loss while the cost to victims was $2.61 billion.
Citigroup Data Breach – How it Affects Your Wallet
This week’s news of the theft of private data comes from Citigroup. Seems that even the most reputable organizations can be exposed to the ever-more frequent data breaches we read about. You’ll likely recall the recent news of Sony, PBS, Epsilon and Lockheed Martin. Regrettably, the list is growing by the day. It affects me, and likely, it affects you. Now what?
First, arm yourself with the facts. See the attached articles.
- http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/06/09/citigroup-data-breach-4-tips-to-protect-yourself/
- http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/09/us-citi-idUSTRE7580TM20110609
- http://www.informationweek.com/news/181502068
Second, remember to protect your most important data (this information, on its own, or in any combination, is a jackpot to an identity thief):
- Social Security number
- Date of birth
- PIN
- Credit Card numbers
- Bank Account numbers
- Birthdate
Third, never reply to an e-mail requesting personal information. Unless you originate the communication, suspect the worst and do not respond. This is referred to as “Phishing” and the results are never good.
Fourth, if you think your credit card has been compromised, call and request a new card. The phone number is on the back of your card, and the associates answering your call love serving as a hero to you and your credit. They’re awesome folks.
And finally, just pay attention. If your intuition is triggered, there’s likely good reason. You’ll never regret being cautious.
Why I Love Canadian Accountants
I love Canadian accountants because not only are they some of the warmest people I have met (I speak on identity theft quite a bit in Canada), but they are incredibly eager to learn how to avoid some of the data security mistakes that we have made in the U.S. As accountants, they provide a ton of vital financial advice to their clients, and I can easily see them sharing some of the data security best practices I talked about during the presentation and getting paid well by their clients to do it. And here’s how I could tell their level of absorption: after the speech, they had a slew of detailed follow-up questions. They were curious. You can always tell someone’s intention to act and make changes by their clarification questions. No questions, no interest, no intent to act. Definitely not what I experienced in the charming town of Winnipeg.
If you are ever in Winnipeg, say hello for me and go buy some Chocolates at the little sundry stand in the middle of The Forks market (see the video). You won’t be sorry.
Are You Begging to Get Fired?
We’ve all done it before – left the table to get a coffee refill or go to the bathroom and left our laptop, iPad, smartphone or purse sitting on the table. We justify it by telling ourselves that we are in a friendly place and will only be gone a second. Our tendency is to blame technology for information theft, but the heart of the problem is almost always a human error, like leaving our devices unattended. Realizing that carelessness is the source of most laptop theft makes it a fairly easy problem to solve.
My office is directly above a Starbucks, so I spend way too much time there. And EVERY time I’m there, I watch someone head off to the restroom (see video) or refill their coffee and leave their laptop, iPad, iPhone, briefcase, purse, client files and just about everything else lying around on their table like a self-service gadget buffet for criminals and opportunists alike.
I trust deeply in the honesty and integrity of the people I know well, but if you are trusting your Starbucks crowd with this amazingly valuable data, you are going to get a steaming hot lap full of trouble. Data thieves target places like this because it is an upscale, trusting clientele. Just ask Ben Bernake, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose wife got taken at a Starbucks.
Smartphone Survival Guide Now Available For The Kindle!
Identity Theft Expert John Sileo has partnered with Amazon.com for a limited time to offer the Smartphone Survival Guide for Kindle at 1/4 of the retail price.
Click Here to Order Today!
The Smartphone Survival Guide: 10 Critical Tips in 10 Minutes
Smartphones are the next wave of data hijacking. Let this Survival Guide help you defend yourself before it’s too late.
Smartphones are quickly becoming the fashionable (and simplest) way for thieves to steal private data. Case in point: Google was recently forced to remove 21 popular Android apps from its official application website, Android Market, because the applications were built to look like useful software but acted like electronic wiretaps. At first glance, apps like Chess appear to be legitimate, but when installed, turn into a data-hijacking machine that siphons private information back to the developer.
The Smartphone Survival Guide gives you extensive background knowledge on many of the safety and privacy issues that plague Smartphones, including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone. Mobile computing is an indispensable tool in the modern world of constant connectivity, but you must protect these powerful tools. Mobile access to the web is here to stay, but we must learn to harness and control it. So whether you are reading this to help protect your own personal Smartphone, or valuable corporate assets, the Smartphone Survival Guide will start you in the right direction.
5 Steps to Avoid Facebook Destruction in Business
How should my business balance the risks of social media with the rewards of this increasingly dominant and highly profitable marketing medium? That’s the very insightful question that a CEO asked me during a presentation I gave on information leadership for a Vistage CEO conference.
Think of your move into social media (Facebook/Fan/Business Pages, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) like you would approach the task of helping your fifteen-year-old daughter prepare to drive on her own. You love her more than anything on earth and would do anything for her (just like you will go to great lengths grow your business), but that doesn’t mean you just hand her the keys. Trying to forbid or ignore the movement into social marketing is like telling your teen that they can’t get their license. It isn’t going to happen, so you might consider putting down the denial and controlling those pieces of change that are within your power. The task is to maximize the positives of her newly bestowed freedom while minimizing any negatives; the same is true in social media.
Here’s a simple plan to follow that will help keep you safe and productive:
Identity Theft Expert Releases Smartphone Survival Guide
In response to the increasing data theft threat posed by Smartphones, identity theft expert John Sileo has released The Smartphone Survival Guide. Because of their mobility and computing power, smartphones are the next wave of data hijacking. iPhone, BlackBerry and Droid users carry so much sensitive data on their phones, and because they are so easily compromised, it’s disastrous when they fall into the wrong hands.
Denver, CO (PRWEB) March 7, 2011
Smartphones are quickly becoming the fashionable (and simplest) way for thieves to steal private data. Case in point: Google was recently forced to remove 21 popular Android apps from it’s official application website, Android Market, because the applications were built to look like useful software but acted like electronic wiretaps. At first glance, apps like Chess appear to be legitimate, but when installed, turn into a data-hijacking machine that siphons private information back to the developer.
In response to this new threat facing iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid and Windows Phone users, identity theft expert John Sileo has just released “The Smartphone Survival Guide: 10 Critical Security Tips in 10 Minutes.”
“Once you download a Trojan app” says Sileo, “the thief has more control over your phone than you do. Your privacy is an open book… your identity, contact list, files, emails, texts, passwords… all of it. This doesn’t just threaten the individual phone owner, it threatens the organizations they work in and the data they handle every day.”
Sileo In the Media
Privacy Project Newsletter
Tools and tips for bulletproofing yourself against identity theft, data breach and corporate espionage. Subscribe to the newsletter and get John Sileo's 7 Survival Strategies for Starving Data Spies for FREE!
