11:13 am
The Denver Examiner just published a new article featuring John Sileo entitled; How to avoid the nightmare of identity theft by Ed Hickok.
Local Denver author, John Sileo, embezzler, thief, cyber criminal, felon . . . but in name only, and that’s the point. Identities have power. Accused of crimes he did not commit, Sileo sought to clear his good name by learning everything he could about identity theft, a crime that consumed his life, his business, and threatened to take away his freedom. Now that he has emerged not guilty, he’s become America’s leading professional speaker on identity theft prevention and corporate data privacy. His experiences led him to write the critically acclaimed, award-winning book, Stolen Lives, which was recently chosen as the #1 Business Book at the EVVY Awards….
Click Here to read the entire article.
John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Speakers and sought-after Identity Theft Experts after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, 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.
4:28 pm
Why pay for Health Insurance when you can steal it?
As the economy dropped severely in 2009, the instances of Identity Theft continued to rise. With desperate times and individuals struggling, Medical Identity Theft and Health Insurance Fraud reports by emergency rooms have been higher than normal over the past several months. According to Javelin Strategy and Research, in 2009 Medical Record Theft had the longest length of time, 493 days, between the theft and detection by the insured. This also led to the highest fraud amount of $18,480 and the largest mean consumer cost of $2987. That means the average consumer that suffers from Medical Identity Theft pays almost $3000 of his own money to resolve the theft! This shows how the financial repercussions of Medical Identity Fraud are the largest among Identity Fraud types.
There are more than just financial risks to Health Insurance Fraud. If your name is linked with another person’s medical records, their blood type, medical history and medications are recorded on your chart. Inaccurate information can lead to ER and hospital mix ups with health complications that could prove deadly.
10:57 am
Identity Theft Prevention and Recovery Workbook
Order your copy Today to get our special introductory pricing!
The #1 recommendation to prevent Identity Theft is Education. Know what to look for and the steps to take to fight Identity Theft. If you have been a victim, learn which steps to take and in what order to recover your Identity quickly, accurately and safely!
Identity Theft is on the rise and according to Javelin Strategy & Research there were a staggering 11.1 MILLION Identity Fraud victims in 2009 alone. The cost of this handbook is well worth the price of protecting your most valuable asset, your Identity!
This 20 page Workbook includes:
Part I – Prevention
This 10 phase process of Preventing Identity Theft Includes:
- Protecting your credit.
- Knowing what is in your wallet.
- Securing databases and physical documents.
- Being safe when mobile computing.
- Protecting Online presence.
- Travel Safely.
- Social Engineering awareness.
Part II – Recovering from Identity Theft Basics
This 17 step process to recovery your Identity includes:
- Top 15 ways to detect Identity Theft.
- Contacting banks, creditors and credit reporting agencies
- How to keep an accurate Dossier.
- Credit Freezes, Fraud alerts and credit monitoring services.
4:22 pm
Statistics can be dry but these figures could prompt you to zealously guard your most valuable asset, your identity. According to Javelin Strategy and Research, Identity Fraud continues to rise, but mean customer costs and resolution time have decreased. In their latest 2010 Identity Fraud Survey Report they found that Identity fraud has risen to 11.1 MILLION US victims, which is up 12% from 9.9 MILLION in 2008. That is a significant climb.
4.81 % of the US population is a victim of Identity Fraud.
The total fraud amount in 2009 reached 54 BILLION dollars, which is up from 48 BILLION dollars in 2008.
Consumers who monitor their accounts electronically have shorter detection times and their consumer costs are over 50% less.
Social Security Number thefts remain the top breached data and one of the most difficult frauds to detect.
The risk of Identity Theft through social networking has nearly doubled in the last year.
Small Business owners suffer from Identity Fraud at one-and-a-half times the rate of all other adults.
What Can we learn from these new statistics?
To prevent identity theft, it’s imperative that you think critically about what you share freely over the internet and through social networking sites. What you post is permanent, public, and exploitable. Also, remember that early detection of Identity fraud is key to a swift recovery. Electronically monitor your accounts and be aware of what is on your credit report.
9:33 am
The Christian Science monitor published an article last week discussing the involvement of Identity Theft in the Dubai Assassination of a senior Hamas militant. Fake passports were created and used by the suspected hit-squad. The ability for people to easily create these identity documents can create huge personal, professional, and international diplomatic destruction. Occurrences like these show how powerful Identity Theft can be and the extent to which the identity thieves can reach.
2:46 pm
The New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. This is the last post on these changes and each post gives you details on how to manage these new settings so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.
What Can Google See? (Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines)
When you visit Facebook’s Search Settings page, a warning message pops up. Apparently, Facebook wants to clear the air about what info is being indexed by Google. The message reads:
There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.
While that may be true to a point, the second setting listed on this Search Settings page refers to exactly what you’re allowing Google to index. If the box next to “Allow” is checked, you’re giving search engines the ability to access and index any information you’ve marked as visible by “Everyone.” As you can see from the settings discussed above, if you had not made some changes to certain fields, you would be sharing quite a bit with the search engines…probably more information than you were comfortable with. To keep your data private and out of the search engines, do the following:
3:48 pm
The New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. This is the second post on these changes and each post will give you details on how to manage these new settings so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.
Who Can See Your Personal Info?
Facebook has a section of your profile called “personal info,” but it only includes your interests, activities, and favorites. Other arguably more personal information is not encompassed by the “personal info” setting on Facebook’s Privacy Settings page. That other information includes things like your birthday, your religious and political views, and your relationship status.
After last month’s privacy changes, Facebook set the new defaults for this other information to viewable by either “Everyone” (for family and relationships, aka relationship status) or to “Friends of Friends” (birthday, religious and political views). Depending on your own preferences, you can update each of these fields as you see fit. However, we would bet that many will want to set these to “Only Friends” as well. To do so:
- From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
- Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices on the next page.
10:50 am
The New York Times recently published an article that discusses the severe changes Facebook has made to privacy settings. Each post will give you details on how to manage these new settings and I will break these three topics up so that you can gradually accumulate your Facebook Privacy.
Who Can See The Things You Share? (Status Updates, Photo, Videos, etc.)
Probably the most critical of the privacy changes was the change made to status updates. Although there’s now a button beneath the status update field that lets you select who can view any particular update, the new Facebook default for this setting is “Everyone.” And by everyone, they mean everyone.
If you accepted the new recommended settings then you voluntarily gave Facebook the right to share the information about the items you post with any user or application on the site. Depending on your search settings, you may have also given Facebook the right to share that information with search engines, too.
To change this setting back to something of a more private nature, do the following:
- From your Profile page, hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the top right and click “Privacy Settings” from the list that appears.
- Click “Profile Information” from the list of choices on the next page.
4:11 pm
Understand the new Facebook homepage and know your settings.
The new layout of Facebook’s homepage had some major navigational and privacy setting changes. You may find it harder to find a link that used to be there or find new features that you haven’t seen, but there are some key components to the new Facebook Homepage. As Facebook illustrates in their new homepage tour, there are 6 core components of the new home page: requests and notifications, news feed, bookmarked applications, online friends, account privacy and settings, birthday and event reminders, and Facebook chat.
Take 5 minutes to view the facebook homepage tour and review your privacy settings. While these three settings are very critical, they’re by no means the only privacy settings worth a look. You may think these sorts of items aren’t worth your time now, the next time you lose out on a job because the hiring manager found some inappropriate pictures or saw something inappropriate a friend posted on your wall, you may have second thoughts. But why wait until after a storm to buy an umbrella?
Visit the Facebook Help Page for more information on your privacy settings.
9:11 am
Yesterday, Google revealed its new social networking tool, Google Buzz. This is a new way to see status messages, picture updates, and Buzz messages of your friends straight through your Gmail account. In some respects, it is very similar to tweets and Facebook status updates, but with the technology and cross-promotion that only Google can deliver. Just as Facebook has tried to combine social media (profiles, messages, pictures, status updates) in one place, Google is attempting to do the same with your email inbox.
What can seem like an innocent way to update friends, if not used correctly, can post personal and seemingly private information in both the public stream and for those in your geographic vicinity. Read more about Google Buzz and Your Privacy Settings here.
PC World has written an article discussing the the most pressing questions about Google Buzz. It touches on things like how advertisements will be targeted to you based upon your status updates. I can only imagine that this would be very similar to how they currently use the content of your email messages to place targeted ads on your gmail screen.
As with any social networking site, be vigilant, as what you post can be made public, not only to your close friends, but to the world. With any social media the main privacy issue to remember is that all posts are public, permanent, and exploitable.
