Practice the Privacy Reflex

The Privacy Reflex
When I am training corporate executives, managers and employees to detect fraud and social engineering (manipulative information-gathering techniques), I take them through what it feels like to be conned. In other words, I actually socially engineer them several times throughout the presentation so that they begin to reflexively sense when more fraud is coming. There is no substitute for experiencing this first hand.

The Trigger—Requests for Identity
Spies are trained to instantly react when anyone asks for information of any kind, whether it is theirs or someone else’s. The trigger, or what causes you to be on high alert, is actually very simple—it is the appearance of your identity in any form (wallet, credit card, tax form, passport, driver’s license, etc.). Anytime someone requests or has access to any of the names, numbers or attributes that make up your identity, or to the paper, plastic, digital or human data where your identity lives, the trigger should trip and sound an alarm in your head.

When your identity is being requested in any way, slow down and ask yourself: Is the risk of giving this piece of identity away in this specific situation worth the benefit?

Posted in Identity Theft by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.

Tags: Data Breach, Hogwash, Identity Theft, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Privacy, social engineering