Identity Theft Expert Speaker John Sileo » identity theft speakers

How to Hide Yourself on Facebook

Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:57:44 +0000

While delivering an identity theft speech for a group of meeting planners this past week, I was asked a very interesting question:

What if I want to use Facebook to log in to other sites and to keep track of friends, but don’t want to share my information the other direction?

In reality, it’s difficult to just up and quit Facebook completely. You may want to use it like the proverbial fly on the wall that lets you watch what is going on in other people’s lives without them seeing or commenting on what is going on in yours. You might use your Facebook login credentials to centralize access to other sites (e.g., log in to Twitter with your Facebook credentials). Or you may want to keep it open so that your username isn’t made available to someone else.

So how do you drop off of the Facebook radar without completely closing your account? The video above and the steps below are the closest approximation we’ve found to going underground.

7 Settings for Hiding on Facebook

First go to Facebook.com and log in to your profile. Click ‘Account’ in the top-right corner and then choose ‘Privacy Settings.’
From the ‘Privacy Settings’ page, under “Connecting on Facebook” click ‘View Settings’ to see who can search for you, send messages to your account, see your education and work settings and more. Change all of these drop-down menus to ‘Friends Only.’ There is no option in this section to restrict the settings to ‘Only Me’ like there is in other areas.
Return to the ‘Privacy Settings’ page and choose ‘Customize Settings’ near the bottom of the page. This new page will load a number of different privacy options, but you’ll want to click through each one and change the setting to ‘Only Me’ so that nobody else can see your Facebook activity.
While on the ‘Customize Settings’ page, scroll down to ‘Things Others Share.’ Here, you want to click Edit Settings and disable settings so that your friends are unable to write on your wall, comment on posts and check you in to places.
Return to the ‘Privacy Settings’ page and, under ‘Apps and Websites’ in the bottom-left corner, select ‘Edit Your Settings.’ This page shows all of the third-party websites and applications that you have given access to some of your Facebook information. If you see anything on this list that you want to remove, just click to remove it from the list.
Stay on the ‘Apps and Websites’ page, scroll down to ‘Instant Personalization’ and select ‘Edit Settings.’ Uncheck the box at the bottom of this page to block other websites from accessing your Facebook interests. Select ‘Confirm’ when a pop-up asks you if you’re sure you want to disable this option.
Return to the ‘Apps and Websites’ page, scroll down to ‘Public Search’ and select ‘Edit Settings.’ To keep search engines from finding your Facebook profile, uncheck the box on this new screen.

John Sileo is the award-winning author of The Facebook Safety Survival Guide and delivers identity theft speeches to clients like the Department of Defense, Pfizer and Homeland Security.

Cyber Theft on Cyber Monday

Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:53:31 +0000

Don’t let a Cyber Scrooge Spoil Your Holidays!

Although most shoppers gear up and focus on Black Friday, Cyber Monday offers tons of hot deals to online shoppers. It began in 2005 and quickly became one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. On average, online shopping increases by 16% (worth more than $760 million dollars) on this one day alone!

Shoppers find the appeal in avoiding parking lots at malls, bustling stores and frantic holiday crowds. While it is very convenient, you can also be putting yourself at greater risk for identity theft and credit card fraud if you are not careful. In any situation there are steps you can take to protect yourself and make it easier to detect fraud if you become a victim. If you protect yourself, I feel that you are safer shopping online than in person (where about 15% of identity theft takes place).

Protect Yourself Online on Cyber Monday

Here are a few steps to take to protect yourself on Cyber Monday:

Never Shop on a Public Wi-Fi Connection - Although you may trust the baristas at your local coffee shop, you can’t always trust the person sitting next to you. Hackers can easily tap into Wi-Fi connections at public hot spots to steal your identity information. This can be especially dangerous when you are making purchases with your credit card on unsecured connections. Always wait until you are on a land line (Ethernet cable) at a location you trust – I recommend making purchases at home.
Monitor Your Accounts - While you are doing a lot of shopping – online and in the store – it is good to keep an eye on your bank and credit card accounts. Match your receipts up to your statement to make sure that they are correct and there are no fraudulent charges. Keep an eye out for small charges, sometimes that is how crooks test to make sure they have a good card. For convenience, set up credit card account alerts that automatically email or text you every time you make a purchase. It makes detecting fraud a snap.
Only Shop on Trusted Websites - Don’t just let the search engine pick the site for you, make sure you are using a trusted and well-known website. Type in the direct web address for the stores you are familiar with, and don’t shop on price alone.
Read the Reviews - When shopping on Ebay or Amazon for gifts this season, read the reviews of the actual seller. While the site may be credited with security, purchasers may have had problems in the past that you want to know about before you buy from them. Only shop on Craigslist if you have extensive experience avoiding online fraud.
Look for Signs They are Protecting Your Data - On the Web page where you enter your credit card or other personal information, look for an “s” after http in the Web address of that page and a secured padlock (as shown below). Encryption is a security measure that scrambles data as it travels through the Internet.
Keep Your Web Browser Updated – Internet Explorer 7 and 8 provide another layer of protection with Web sites that use Extended Validation (EV) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates. The address bar turns green and has both https and the closed padlock. Make sure that when your computer is asking you to update your software you don’t ignore the requests.

Remember, the faster you detect Identity Theft the easier it is to clean it up. Always be aware of what is on your credit report and your bank statements, as crooks rely on our lackadaisical attitude to continue their crooked ways.

John Sileo became America’s top Identity Theft Speaker after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His newest Book Privacy Means Profit – Prevent Identity Theft and Secure You and Your Bottom Line, has just been released. His clients include the Department of Defense, the FTC, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.

Identity Theft Expert: Theft Runs Rampant as Economy Tumbles

Identity Theft Expert John Sileo — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:15:48 +0000

At the Privacy Project, our success is your nightmare (unless you are my speaking agent).

Business at the Sileo Group and engagements as an identity theft speaker are up 400% compared with the same period last year. I am booked for exactly 4X as many identity theft prevention and privacy leadership speeches in the first quarter of 2009 as I was in 2008; and 2008 brought me more work than I could handle on my own. Some of this is due to an extensive contract with the Department of Defense, but not all of it.

I’m not sharing our success to blow my own horn, though admittedly, it is satisfying to finally share some good news with you after having lost so much to this crime.

I’m sharing because our success gave me cold sweats at 3am this morning.

Why? Because the strength of my business is inversely proportional to the safety of yours. My business is thriving because identity theft is thriving, and that is not my purpose for being in business. I am in the identity theft prevention business to put myself out of a job. When I say it keeps me awake at night, I’m being sincere. At 3am this morning, I spent several hours deciphering the underlying causes responsible for the exploding demand for identity theft speakers… even as the meetings and speaking business has suffered drastically at the hands of the spiraling economy. And then it came to me; I realized that the answer was contained in the question… It’s the economy stupid (referring to myself in this case). As the economy tumbles, people look for alternative forms of income. Markets down, crime up. And the most attractive and lucrative crime is identity theft and corporate intellectual property theft. But it’s not just that identity theft crimes are rising, it’s also that awareness of the problem is finally increasing and making headline news. Michael Chertoff, the former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, explained the role of identity in our economy very eloquently:

“It lies at the core of a great deal of what we do protecting our financial security, our personal security, and our reputational security. And what I’m referring to is how we manage and protect our personal identities because I’m going to submit to you that in the 21st Century, the most important asset that we have to protect as individuals and as part of our nation is the control of our identity, who we are, how we identify ourselves, whether other people are permitted to masquerade and pretend to be us, and thereby damage our livelihood, damage our assets, damage our reputation, damage our standing in our community.”
- Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of US Homeland Defense

And look at the headline on the front page of last Friday’s USA Today: As the market tumbles, cyberthieves log on: Data-stealing scams have kicked into high gear since last fall. Here is a compilation of quotes from the USA Today article…

Cybercriminals have launched a massive new wave of Internet-based schemes to steal personal data and carry out financial scams in an effort to take advantage of the fear and confusion created by tumbling financial markets… [Cybercriminals] are breaching… the highest levels of the global finance infrastructure and a majority of our home computers… Thieves recently broke into [Monster.com's] databases to steal user IDs, passwords and other data that could be useful in a variety of scams… the fact that thousands of tech-savvy workers are being laid off in today’s economy is raising concerns that some of the jobless might see cybercrime as a way to survive… Data-stealing gangs could begin reaching out to laid-off of disgruntled employees who know their employers’ tech systems…

Or how about an article in the Wall Street Journal on the very same day entitled: Cyber-Scams On the Uptick In Downturn:

The bear economy is creating a bull market for cyber-crooks… cyber-assaults on many banks have doubled in the past six months… hundreds of senior executives across the globe received personally addressed emails [sic] last April, saying they were being subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury… when users clicked on a link containing the attachment, their computers were infected with malicious software… [experts suspect that the] fraudsters were trying to get “first-quarter financial results of publicly traded companies a week before everybody else”… The use of cellphone text messages is a fairly new tactic…

So what is the solution? For business executives, implementing a Privacy Strategy falls into three strategic initiatives:

Personal Knowledge. Educate your entire team about data theft, from the boardroom to the mailroom. Employees and executives won’t take responsibility for the sanctity and privacy of your customer data, employee records and intellectual capital until they learn to take responsibility for their own private information. All good habits start with the individual human beings that handle the sensitive data inside of your corporation.
Culture of Privacy. Protecting data assets is not a one-time event, it is part of the corporate fabric. You can’t expect to simply publish a privacy policy and have your employees care about it, let alone read it. That’s like asking them to read the fine print on a stranger’s mortgage contract – why should they care? They have to be invested in, empowered, motivated, rewarded and held accountable for the way they protect your information assets. It is imperative that your organization develops a privacy strategy that includes a healthy culture of privacy.
Executive Responsibility. Recently, I wrote an article entitled The 7 Deadly Sins of Privacy Leadership: How CEOs Enable Data Breach. Part of the problem is that we look at identity theft and data breach through the singular lens of technology when we should be viewing it through the eyes of executive leadership. As leadership begins to recognize that they are part of the problem, they will become more of the solution.

Interested in educating your team to Think Like a Spy (individual prevention), Build a Culture of Privacy (team-based solutions) or Eliminate the 7 Deadly Sins (leadership)? Learn more about bringing Identity Theft Expert John Sileo to your next conference, meeting or event.