Top Tips to Stop Travel Identity Theft – Sileo on Fox Business
Identity theft increases a great deal when you are on the road. Start protecting yourself with these Top 5 Identity Theft Tips while traveling:
- Travel Data Light. If you don’t have to take it with you, increase your safety and leave it at home. This includes checkbooks, debit cards, excess credit cards, Social Security cards and any excess digital gadgets. Simplicity is Security!
- Guard Your Devices. Smartphones and tablets are as powerful as laptops. Turn on the auto-lock passcode to keep others out of your information.
- Surf Protected. Stop using the free WiFi hotspots in cafes, airports and hotels, as they are constantly sniffed by cyber criminals. Instead, setup tethering between your mobile phone and tablet or laptop so that you are surfing safely.
- Privacy Please! Instead of leaving loads of data unprotected in your hotel room (a major source of theft), hang your privacy sign on the door and let house cleaning know that you do not want to be disturbed. Lowering traffic lowers risk.
- Mind the Lions at the Watering Hole. Take a minute to watch the video to the left to understand how increasing your awareness in airports, hotels, conferences and restaurants can save you tons of time and money.
Facebook Gets Slapped on Wrist by FTC for Lack of Privacy
Can social media and privacy mix? The short answer is no. Social media is social by nature (meaning others are involved) and is media based (meaning that the materials are designed to be easily communicated and shared). When something is essentially named Share with Others, privacy is an afterthought. But that doesn’t mean it should be completely non-existant, or at least transparent – so that we know what we are sharing with others.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is about to hold Facebook to stronger safeguards regarding user privacy, but in the end, it won’t matter very much because they are leaving Facebook with lots of wiggle room.
Rumor has it that Facebook will soon have to acquire users’ consent before making changes to privacy policies that affect current user data. That is a total contrast to what they’ve done in the past, which is to rewrite their privacy policies to be less protective without so much as giving users a whiff of the changes to their privacy.
It looks like Facebook, much like happened recently with Google, may have to submit to independent privacy audits annually over the next 20 years. At issue is the fact that the settlement will prohibit Facebook from making information that’s already on the site available to a wider audience without user consent.
Top 7 Reasons Mobile Banking Apps Aren’t Safe (Yet)
A new study produced by The Ponemon Institute and ThreatMetrix (Mobile Payments & Online Shopping – October 2011) states that only 29% of consumers use mobile banking apps on their smart phones and tablets. Of those that don’t participate, 51% cite security reasons for their lack of participation. In other words, consumers like you and I are not yet comfortable with mobile banking. And our instincts are correct! Why shouldn’t you be comfortable with mobile banking appsquite yet?
Top 7 Reasons Why Mobile Banking Apps Aren’t Yet Safe
- Because most app stores (e.g., Android Marketplace) don’t review apps for security, it is very easy for criminals to post malicious apps that steal information from your mobile device (like your bank account numbers).
- The average smartphone or tablet user has installed no security software on their mini-computer (that’s what smartphones and tablets are), meaning that they have only a fraction of the security of a laptop or desktop.
- Detected malware developed for the Android platform alone has increased by 400% in the past year.
- The technology that keeps apps separate on your smartphone or tablet doesn’t separate them out into private sandboxes, meaning that one app can read the juicy details stored in the other without much difficulty.
iPad Vampires: 7 Simple Security Settings to Stop Data Suckers
Information is the currency and lifeblood of the modern economy and, unlike the industrial revolution, data doesn’t shut down at dinnertime. As a result, the trend is towards hyper-mobile computing – smartphones and tablets – that connect us to the Internet and a limitless transfusion of information 24-7. It is an addiction that employers encourage because it inevitably means that we are working after hours (scanning emails in bed rather than catching up with our spouse).
In the work we do to change the culture of privacy inside of organizations, we have discovered a dilemma: iPads are not as secure as other forms of computing and are leaking significant amounts of organizational data to corporate spies, data thieves and even competing economies (China, for example, which would dearly love to pirate the recipe for your secret sauce). Do corporations, then, sacrifice security for the sake of efficiency, privacy for the powerful touch screens that offer a jugular of sensitive information?
Of course not! That’d be like driving a race car minus seat belts and air bags.
iPads provide a competitive advantage, and like generations of tools before it (the cotton gin, the PC), individuals and organizations alike will be forced to learn how to operate this equipment safely or risk the bite of intellectual property vampires. Here are 7 Simple Security Settings to help you lock down your iPad much like you would your laptop.
How Secure is Your Gmail, Hotmail, YahooMail?
I just finished an interview with Esquire magazine about the security of webmail applications like Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and YahooMail. Rebecca Joy, who interviewed me on behalf of Esquire, wanted to know in the wake of the Rupert Murdoch phone-hacking scandal, how secure our photos and messages are when we choose to use free webmail programs.
The simple answer? Not very secure. Just ask Vanessa Hudgens (nude photos), Sarah Palin (complete takeover of her email account) and the scores of celebrities and power figures who have been victimized by email hacking.
Think of using webmail (or any web-based software, including Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, etc.) as checking into a hotel room. Unlike a house, where you have tighter control over your possessions, the same is not true of a hotel. While you definitely own the items you bring into a hotel room (laptop, smartphone, wallet, passport, client files), you don’t have nearly as much control as to how they are accessed (maids, managers, social engineers who know how to gain access to your room). In short, by using webmail to communicate, you are exchanging convenience for control.
Here are the five most common ways you lose control:
- The password on your email account is easy to guess (less than 13 characters, fail to use alpha-numeric-symbol-upper-lower-case, don’t change it often) and someone easily hacks into your webmail account, giving them access to your mail, photos, contacts, etc.
U.S. Lags Europe on Credit Card Security
We can be as patriotic as we want to be, but today, the US lags behind other countries in credit card technology and consumer safety. Our current-day magnetic-strip technology is archaic compared to the chip-embedded cards of our European counterparts. Though some larger US retailers are offering support of the “smart-chip” cards, a mandate for their use (and greater protection for the consumer) is down the road. (Click here for the original story on NPR).
According to Andrea Rock, a senior editor at Consumer Reports who wrote an article about the security gap in the credit card industry (emphasis mine):
“The account information that’s needed to make a transaction on American cards is stored, unencrypted, on a magnetic stripe on the back of each card,”
And that means, until the industry changes, you are at risk. In the mean time, here are a few steps you can take to increase your security:
- Limit use of your debit card. The bank offers you less protection on debit transactions than credit transactions. Additionally, with debit cards, there is a PIN involved, potentially providing immediate cash access to your accounts by clever thieves. If fraud occurs, you are out the money until it is resolved.
- Use your credit card instead. It’s safer. Typically, credit card issuers offer zero-liability for losses associated with unauthorized transactions. You also have a longer time frame to catch and report the fraud.
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
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