Tag Archive for: Financial Speaker

Identity Theft Expert John Sileo on 60 Minutes


Achilles, an ancient Greek superhero — half human, half god — was in the business of war. His only human quality (and therefore his only exploitable weakness) was his heel, which when pierced by a Trojan arrow brought Achilles to the ground, defeated. From this Greek myth, the Achilles’ Heel has come to symbolize a
deadly weakness in spite of overall strength; a weakness that can potentially lead to downfall. As I formulated my thoughts in regard to New Zealand, I realized that the same weaknesses are almost universal — applying equally well to nations, corporations and individuals.During a recent 60 Minutes interview, I was asked off camera to name the Achilles’ heel of an entire country’s data security perspective; what exactly were the country’s greatest weaknesses. The country happened to be New Zealand, a forward-thinking nation smart enough to take preventative steps to avoid the identity theft problems we face in the States. The question was revealing, as was the metaphor they applied to the discussion.

For starters, let’s assume your business is strong, maybe even profitable in these tough economic times. In the spirit of Sun Tzu and The Art of War, you’ve dug in your forces, preparing for a lengthy battle: you’ve reduced costs, maximized your workforce, and focused on your most profitable strategies. As your competitors suffocate under market pressure, you breathe stronger as a result of the exercise. But like Achilles, your survival through adversity blinds you and even conditions you to ignore pending threats. You begin to think that your overall strength translates into an absence of weaknesses; and in general, you might be right. But Achilles didn’t die because of his overall strength, which was significant; he died because he ignored critical details. What details are you and your company ignoring?

Information, like Achilles himself, is power. And maintaining control and ownership of your information is quite possibly the most threatening Achilles’ heel any data-reliant business faces. Companies that don’t actively take control of their data are prime targets for identity theft, social engineering, data breach, corporate espionage, and social media exploitation. Regardless of your title, you have a great deal to learn from Achilles’ mistakes, and a significant opportunity to protect your own corporate heel.

Achilles 3 Fatal Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Admit Your Vulnerabilities. Achilles forgot that he was human, failing to take inventory of his weakness in spite of superior strength. Though his faults were limited — a small tendon at the base of his foot — his failure to protect himself in the right spots proved fatal. When protecting data, it is imperative to understand that your greatest vulnerabilities lie with the people inside of your company. No matter how secure your computer systems, no matter how much physical security you deploy, humans will always be your weakest link. The more technological security you implement, the quicker data thieves will be to attempt to socially engineer those inside your company (or pose as an insider) to capture your data. Admitting vulnerabilities doesn’t have to be a public, embarrassing act. It can be as simple as a quiet conversation with yourself and key players about where your business is ignoring risk.

The three greatest human vulnerabilities tend to be: 1. Unawareness of the risks posed by data loss, 2. Lack of emotional connection to the importance of data privacy (personally in professionally) and it’s affect on profitability, and 3. Misunderstanding that in a world where information is power, it’s no longer about whom you trust, but how you trust. These symptoms suggest that your privacy training has either been non-existent or dry, overly technical, policy related and lacking a strong “what’s-in-it-for-me” link between the individuals in your organization and the data they protect every day.

If this is true inside of your business, rethink your training from this perspective: Your audience members (employees) are individuals with their own identity concerns, not just assets of the company who can be forced to follow a privacy policy that they don’t even pretend to understand. By tapping into their personal vulnerabilities regarding private information (protecting their own Social Security Number, etc.), you can develop a framework and a language for training them to protect sensitive corporate information. Like in martial arts, where you channel your opponent’s energy to your favor, use your employee’s humanness to your advantage. Pinpoint these vulnerabilities and shine the light of education on them.

Fight Prevention Paralysis. One of the most unfortunate and destructive character traits among humans is our hesitation to prevent problems. It is human nature to invest time to prevent tragedy only after we’ve experienced the pain that results from inaction. We hop on the treadmill and order from the healthy menu only after our heart screams for attention. We install a home security system only after we’ve been robbed. Pain motivates action, but the damage is usually done. You can bet that had he the chance to do it all over again, Achilles would slap a piece of armor around his heel (just like TJMAXX would encrypt their wireless networks and AT&T would secure their iPad data).

Prevention doesn’t get the proper attention because its connection to the bottom line is initially harder to see. You are, in essence, eliminating a cost to your business that doesn’t yet exist (the costs of a future data breach: restoring and monitoring customer credit, brand damage, stock depreciation, legal costs, etc.). This seems counterintuitive when you could be eliminating costs that already exist. But here is the flaw in that method of thinking: the cost of prevention is a tiny fraction of the cost of recovery. When you prevent disaster, you get a huge return on your investment (should a breach ever occur). Statistics say that a breach will occur inside of your organization, which means that by failing to invest in prevention you are consciously denying your organization a highly profitable investment. Why would you insure your business against low percentage risks (fire), but turn the other way when confronted with a risk that has already affected 80% of businesses (data breach) and has an almost guaranteed double digit ROI? It is your responsibility to demonstrate how the numbers work; spend small amounts of money preventing, or vast sums of time and money recovering.

Harden the Riskiest Targets. Once you have admitted to and cataloged your vulnerabilities and allocated the resources to protect them, it is time to focus on those solutions with the greatest return on your investment. A constant problem in business is knowing how to see clearly through information overexposure and pick the right projects. Just think of how much stronger Achilles would have been had he placed armor over his heel (which was human) rather than his chest (which was immortal). There is no financially responsible way to lower your risk to zero, so you have to make the right choices. Most businesses will gain the greatest security by focusing on the following targets first:

  1. Bulletproof Your People. Most fraud is still committed the old fashioned way – by manipulating trusting, unsuspecting people inside of your organization. Train your people for what they are: the first line of defense against fraud. Begin by preventing identity theft among your staff and then bridge this personal knowledge into the world of professional data privacy.
  2. Protect Your Mobile Data. Laptops, smart phones and portable drives are the most common sources of severe data theft. The solution to this very powerful and ubiquitous form of computing is a quilt-work of security including password strengthening, data transport limitations,  access-level privileges, whole disk and wireless encryption, VPN and firewall configuration, physical locking and human decision making (e.g., don’t leave it unattended the next time you get coffee at your corporate conference).
  3. Prevent Insider Theft: Perform thorough background checks, reference verification and personality assessment to weed out dishonest employees before they join your organization. Implement an ongoing “honesty meter” for your employees that ensures they haven’t picked up bad or illegal habits since joining your company.
  4. Classify Your Data. Develop a system of classification that includes public, internal, confidential and top secret levels, along with secure destruction and storage guidelines.
  5. Anticipate the Clouds. Cloud computing (when you store your data on other people’s servers), is quickly becoming a major threat to the security of organizational data. Whether an employee is posting sensitive corporate info on their Facebook page (which Facebook has the right to distribute as they see fit) or you are storing customer data in a poorly protected, non-compliant server farm, you will ultimately be held responsible when that data is breached. You must be aware of who owns that data, today and in the future, when your storage company is bought out or goes bankrupt.

We have much to learn from the foresight of New Zealand; they are an excellent example of how organizations should defend their Achilles’ heel. To begin with, they have begun to acknowledge their vulnerabilities in advance of the problem (in fact, their chief vulnerability is that dangerous form of innocence that comes from having very few data theft issues, so far). In addition, they are taking steps to proactively prevent the expansion of identity theft and data breach in their domain (as evidenced by the corresponding educational story on 60 Minutes). Finally, they are targeting solutions that cost less and deliver more value. I was in New Zealand to instruct them on data security. Ironically, I gained as much knowledge on my area of expertise from them as I believe they did from me.

John Sileo speaks professionally on identity theft, data breach and social networking safety. His clients include the Department of Defense, the FDIC, FTC, Pfizer and the Federal Reserve Bank. Learn more about bringing him in to motivate your organization to better protect information assets.

Are Your Kids Safe Online?

As a parent you are often worried about what your kids are being exposed to on the Internet. Apparently so are Facebook and the PTA. They have teamed up to teach parents and children about responsible Internet use. They plan to cover cyber-bullying, internet safety and security and “citizenship online,” according to a news release.

“Nothing is more important to us than the well-being of the people, especially the many teenagers, who use Facebook,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer.

Facebook is the number one social media site with over 500 million users and a minimum age requirement of 13. Even that requirement can be easily fudged because Facebook has no way of verifying a user’s age besides asking for their birth date when they register. Parents are having trouble deciding whether to let their children join Facebook prematurely and what they should be cautious of if they do so.

Learn more on Protecting Your Children Online.

It is important to be educated when dealing with any form of social media or social networking website. Social networking is immensely powerful and is here for the long run, but we must learn to harness and control it. You should know the ins and outs, pros and cons, risks and rewards to using these online tools. Because teens and children don’t necessarily have the life experiences to recognize the risks, parents must educate themselves and pass that knowledge on with open and honest discussions on Facebook and Online Safety.

John Sileo became one of America’s leading Social Networking Speakers & 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.

5 Business Survival Lessons from Google’s Spying

A few months ago, Google got caught sniffing unencrypted wireless transmissions as its Street View photography vehicles drove around neighborhoods and businesses. It had been “accidentally” listening in on transmissions for more than 3 years – potentially viewing what websites you visit, reading your emails, and browsing the documents you edit and save in the cloud.

Public opinion blames Google, because Google is big and rich and and scarily omnipotent in the world of information domination. It’s fashionable to blame Google. What Google did was, to me, unethical, and they should eliminate both the collection practice and their archive of sniffed data.

But the greater responsibility lies with the businesses and homes that plugged in a wireless network and did nothing to protect it. Don’t tell me that you don’t know better. When you beam unencrypted data outside of your building, it’s no different than putting unshredded trash on your curb – YOU NO LONGER OWN IT. In fact, when you take no steps to protect the data that flies out of your airwaves and into the public domain, you really have no claim against someone taking it. It’s like finding a $100 bill on an abandoned sidewalk – you can claim it or the next lucky person will. Tom Bradley of PC World agrees:

The lesson for businesses and IT administrators is that you have to put forth some effort to at least give the appearance that you intend for the information to be private in order for there to be any inherent expectation of privacy. The burden should not be on Google, or the general public to have to determine whether the data you let freely fly about unencrypted is meant to be shared or is intended for a specific audience.

The Google story illuminates 5 Business Survival Lessons:

  1. This, like so many other business issues, is not a technology problem. The technology to keep out unwanted eyes exists (unless a government wants to tap you) and is accessible and affordable. The problem is human — someone has decided to ignore what they know should be done (especially having read this article)
  2. Private information that you fail to protect is no longer your private information (pragmatically and probably even legally).
  3. In the marketplace of data, just like in business, it is your responsibility to control what you can. Not everything is in your power, but safe wireless transmissions are. Whether it’s trash in a dumpster, posts on Facebook or wireless signals, the responsibility is yours and your business’s, not just Google’s, Facebook’s and corporate America’s. You must do your part.
  4. If you don’t employ at least WPA2 encryption currently on your wireless networks, I can nearly guarantee your data is being watched. And the expense of upgrading is minor compared to the prospect of breach, so lose that excuse.
  5. Prevention isn’t sexy, but it’s profitable. Whether your are preventing data leakage, budget shortfalls, or a heart attack, the key is to do the hard work before it happens.

John Sileo is the award-winning author of Stolen Lives and Privacy Means Profit (Wiley, August 2010), a professional Financial Speaker and America’s leading identity theft expert. His clients include the Department of Defense, FTC, FDIC and Pfizer; his recent media appearances include 60 Minutes. Contact him on 800.258.8076.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Privacy Leadership: How CEOs Enable Data Breach

Technology is not the root cause of identity theft, data breach or cyber crime.

We are.

Too often, technology is our scapegoat, providing a convenient excuse to sit apathetically in our corner offices, unwilling to put our money where our profits are. Unwilling, in this case, to even gaze over at the enormous profit-sucking sound that is mass data theft. The deeper cause of this crisis festers in the boardrooms of corporate America. Like an overflowing river, poor privacy leadership flows inexorably downhill from the CEO, until at last, it undermines the very banks that contain it.

The identity theft and data breach bottom line?

Corporate boardrooms across America care about the loss of people’s personal data about as much as Ford cared about recalling the Pinto when they began exploding on rear impact. Hey, it was cheaper to fight the lawsuits from the surviving relatives than re-engineer the gas tank. And it’s cheaper to take a tax write-off on fraud-loss line items than to dig this weed up by the roots. We fail to see the connection between privacy breaches and larger profit hits — liability lawsuits, brand damage, customer flight, stock depreciation, loss of trust in the company, bad press, etc. Just ask TJX, who has spent well over $500 million recovering from their data breach – a breach that could have been prevented with only tens of thousands of dollars.

In clearer terms, poor leadership (not technology) is the primary factor leading to data breach. And we stand by, you and me both, mostly silent and submissive, as corporation after corporation loses our private data. We suffer the consequences. It is our credit that is destroyed; our time wasted dealing with law enforcement, credit bureaus, collection agencies, bankruptcy courts, criminal charges and the deep and personal violation of being the victim of a crime that no one really cares about. It makes a great news story, but only because we can deny that it will ever reach us.

Millions of years ago we evolved from the primordial slime with a backbone built for standing up to our challenges. Why, all of a sudden, has our backbone disappeared? We’ve built the Great Wall of China, landed on the moon, eradicated polio and elected the first African American, Barack Obama, to be President of the United States. But we can’t protect the customer data, employee records and intellectual capital that gives our corporations their value? That underlies our capitalist economy? Information is our most valuable asset, but god forbid we invest in a privacy strategy to protect that asset.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Prviacy Leadership: How CEOs (and other Executives) Enable Data Breach

As an identity theft speaker who travels the country speaking on this topic, I’ve noticed that a majority of corporations experiencing data breach and workplace identity theft share similar weaknesses in their overall privacy fabric. You have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes before they become yours. Begin by asking yourself whether you (as a leader) or your organization suffers from any of the 7 Deadly Sins:

  1. Apathy – a disturbing lack of care for and attention to a crime you incorrectly believe will never seriously impact your bottom line. If you have never had a corporate-wide privacy education initiative, you are a prime candidate for this weakness.
  2. Ignorance – many leaders refuse to admit that they don’t know what they don’t know. For example, do you know the value, location and confidentiality of your sensitive data?  Do you know how it is protected, how long it is maintained and why you keep it in the first place?
  3. Arrogance – some executives see themselves as champions of data privacy because they have a strong IT department, but fail to see that privacy doesn’t exist in a silo. Does your organization tend to believe that data privacy is the realm of the I.T. Department? If so, you are overlooking other critical functions (human resources, sales, intellectual property, legal compliance) that are touched by privacy concerns on a daily basis.
  4. Greed – many CEOs are the first to violate the very privacy policies that they champion. Have you ever surfed unprotected at the airport? Do you shred every piece of sensitive data that goes in your trash? What passwords are stored in your BlackBerry?
  5. Hypocrisy – many CEOs are the first to violate the very privacy policies that they champion. Have you ever surfed unprotected at the airport? Do you shred every piece of sensitive data that goes in your trash? What passwords are stored in your BlackBerry?
  6. Paralysis – some companies and executives have difficulty breaking old habits and, by default, choose to perpetuate high-risk data practices. Do you collect certain private information simply because you always have? Have you ever re-evaluated your hiring policies to take corporate espionage, workplace identity theft and insider fraud into account?
  7. Procrastination – Even executives who care about, educate themselves on, admit to, have the budget to invest in and personally practice data safety… never get around to doing something about it at the corporate level. When you are finished with this article, how will your behavior change? Will you get to it later?

This is not an easy topic, but running an organization isn’t an easy task. Leaders that guide their corporations to develop a privacy strategy that avoids these security sins will achieve a long-term competitive advantage in the marketplace. And in the marketplace of ideas, in the oft-proclaimed information economy, what better asset to protect than our private information?

John Sileo is a victim of The 7 Deadly Sins of Data Privacy. After losing his business to data breach and his reputation to identity theft, John became America’s leading identity theft speaker. He uses his gripping story, first-hand experiences and humorous interaction to inspire audiences around the world to protect corporate data as if it were their own. His clients include the Department of Defense, FDIC, AARP and Pfizer. Learn more at www.ThinkLikeASpy.com.