Just as you wouldn’t want to give any personal identity information to someone via email, you want to use the same practices via text message. There is a new wave of fraud that tries to trick you with text messages appearing to be from your bank. SMiShing uses cell phone text messages to deliver the [...]

This past week, I have been helping a gentleman recover from the theft of all of his tax records.  Before it is all over, this gentleman will have spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars simply preventing any further fraudulent use of his identity. That doesn’t account for any damages already done to his [...]

“Might I have another lump of coal for the fire, Mr. Scrooge?” -Bob Cratchit (Dickens’ A Christmas Carol) What in the world do we have to learn from Ebenezer Scrooge about protecting our identities during the busy holiday season? Plenty! Scrooge was a miserly old git who wouldn’t share anything – his coal, his wealth, [...]

Not long ago Sarah Palin’s Yahoo.com email account was hacked. The hacker used a simple scheme and basic social engineering tools (research on Google and Wikipedia, common-sense guessing) to reset the password on the account and assume ownership of her email. In addition to denying Governor Palin access to her own account, the hacker had [...]

Recently I met two soldiers who alerted me to the new security risk of Cell Phone Tapping. SigInt (or signal interception) has long been a part of warfare and espionage. But the possibilities erupt with the advent of cell phone tapping. Imagine the conversation of a soldier being overheard by the enemy – deployment details, [...]

Most of the risks of social networking fall into one of the following categories, which I call the 7 Hazards of Social Networking: Impersonation. Does the social networking account (e.g., Twitter account) belong to the actual person or company it is representing? For example, if you look at the Twitter account @johnsileo, you will see [...]

Facebook safety has a direct correlation to your business’s bottom line. Facebook, and social media sites in general, are in an awkward stage between infancy and adulthood – mature in some ways, helpless in others. On the darker side of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, scammers and identity thieves are drooling at the sight [...]

Laptop anti-theft, or protecting your mobile data, is a MUST for corporations and consumers. Almost half of workplace identity theft takes place because of mobile data. And the average value of the data on your laptop can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to a corporate spy or experienced identity thief. At the higher [...]