This is the eleventh year in a row that the Federal Trade Commission has stated that the number one complaint lodged with it is identity theft. It ranked higher than debt collectors, which was second, and phony sweepstakes. The agency continued by saying that the fasting growing type of this fraud is called impostor scams. In this form of the crime, the would-be fraudster will pose as someone you know, government agencies, trusted companies, or even family, to coax information out of you or get you to buy into their schemes.

This tax season can make you a target. If you get e-mails from the IRS (logo and all), requiring a credit card number to settle outstanding debts, don’t believe the threats the e-mail says about garnishing your wages or imposing liens on your home. This is not how the IRS performs an audit. The IRS doesn’t e-mail or call. They send a notice in the mail. So don’t buy this one.

The other scam the FTC said to be aware of in an evolution to social networks. Grandma and Grandpa are set up on Facebook or some other social network. It was a cute and convenient having setting them up on there, but now they are big victims. This scam uses hacked social network accounts to beg for emergency loans because of stolen wallets or unjust imprisonments, etc. “Send money quick!” is proving to be much more effective than when the scammers were using phone calls.

The FTC is being swamped with new cases daily, and can only do so much on an individual level. The greatest protection at this point is still awareness. It is easier to be what you can identify. The FTC has posted a tip sheet on spotting impostor scams at http://www.ftc.gov under “consumer protection.”

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I man placed a number of pictures on a photo sharing site. He never expected what would happened next.

“Some five years ago, Israeli expat Noam Galai posted a series of five photos of himself screaming on Flickr. Since then, those photos have been reproduced hundreds of times in various forms of media across ~40 countries including Iran, where his face was used as a symbol of civil unrest in anti-government protests.

The kicker? Galai had no clue this was going on.”

-The Daily What

“Artists like their work to be published and seen by as many people as possible… it’s another way to publish my work. It’s not me publishing it, but other people publish my work for me.”

There are setting on such sites to regulate the permission of their redistribution, copyrights, and privacy.

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The next generation of credit cards has been pushed into the limelight. MasterCard has begun using Debit Display on both its MasterCard and Maestro brands in Turkey. These cards generate a random six figure number for per-use entry at the touch of a button on the card itself. The hope is that this will cut down on the identity thefts that occur when the card is not present and it is just the card number the fraudster has.

The downside is that these tiny screens displaying the randomly generated next level of security are LCD. Anyone with a bit of tech experience knows that LCD screens are not exactly impact or bend resistant.

Its a start. The message rings true. As with a great many other industries, the attention has come back to the customer. In a fight to get away from the clutter and the desire to claim more brand awareness, companies are no longer “selling” to us. Rather, they are “catering” to our needs and acknowledging our concerns like a 12-year-old seeking validation from a parent. “Look what we are doing for your security,” these corporate giants are shouting. “We care about your family and your finances!”

The up side to this arms race is the benefits for the consumer keep coming like reparations for years of manipulation and neglect.

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This news hails from Germany, where researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute found a method to retrieve all the secrets of your iPhone. They needed six minutes and no authorization. Bid adieu to your private data.

The good news is that any would be hacker/fraudsters need to gain physical access to your device. This means they cannot gain access to your stuff if you never lose the phone, remote attacks are still not known to be possible. The hack reveals user passwords, along with other sensitive info. The phones firmware is compromised, meaning it is jailbroken. After this a series of scripts are run through the device which are capable of getting around the iPhone’s original encryption. The encryption itself remains intact as passwords for email accounts, Wi-Fi networks, and many other things, are yanked from the device. Once the attacker has your emails, Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, and whatever else can be reset or breeched as well.

Any iOS device currently running the newest Apple firmware could be victimized.

Your greatest safety measure is of course to never let your apple mobile device out of your possession. If an iPhone is lost, don’t abandon all hope, rather go and change all of your email, Amazon, Facebook,  and Twitter accounts immediately. Any service that you logged into from the phone could be in jeopardy. Assume such.

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Image by http://linesandmoodswings.com/

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The world is online. Our good friend Mr. Gates once said “The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”  Bill wasn’t wrong. But even small towns have perverts, killers and criminals. They have Facebook in some of the more poverty-stricken and crime-saturated places in the world. You need to make sure your profile is not open to be viewed by anyone, that information like your phone number or home address isn’t there for all to see, and that you’re overall protected.

Many people use Facebook.com as a way to publicize an event they are planning. This is a great tool. There are a few reasons why it’s dangerous to leave such events open to the public. For one, you often need to leave contact information for such events to ensure people will have someone to talk to if they get lost getting there or if they have questions regarding what to bring. Anyone can see this if the event is left public. In the sense of house parties: Do you really want your boss, the authorities, or in some weird twist, the local news, to see what you are planning, what people are saying, who is going, or where it is? Privatize your events.

When it comes to photos, you don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry to see them. Upload photos to your wall only. If you go and edit your privacy settings to prevent certain people from seeing your statuses, this will be replicated to wall photos too (unless you specify otherwise). If anything select the friends only for the “make visible to” setting. You can specify if there are others you do not wish to have see your profile and its accompaniments.

Lastly, bare-bone your profile information. There is no need for you to tell everyone where you grew up, where you are living now, what day of the month you were born on, and what your sexual preference is. Please use caution when typing anything into the “About me” text block too. Go to “profile” and then “edit profile” to make changes.

The whole guide provided by Zdnet.com can be found here.

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There is an organization that’s sole purpose is to help people who have become victims of identity theft. It is called the National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA). NOVA provide consumers with aid and awareness that is needed following an identity theft. NOVA does not require a specific set of criteria and is available to all victims of identity theft. They can be reached online, www.trynova.org or by calling 1-800-TRY-NOVA.

Another entity working against this growing crime is The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) they are working together with the company LifeLock to develop the “Identity Smart: A Guide for Consumers to Help Protect Against Identity Theft.” This is a free book that is available for download and can be shared with everyone in your communities. If you or someone you know may be interested in educating your community about identity theft this can be a huge step. They help to educate consumers and do so free of charge. You can check out their Speakers Series to learn more.

Contact Information:

Paige Pedersen, Manager, Educational Programs
Office: 480-457-2108
E-mail: paige.pedersen@lifelock.com

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The FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association (FBI-LEEDA) is going to working closely with the identity protection company LifeLock® to sponsor an identity theft summit for Dallas-area law enforcement on Thursday, January 6, 2011.

The summit will be made available for Chiefs, Sheriffs, Investigative Supervisors, Fraud Unit Investigators, Patrol Officers and Community Policing Personnel, Special Agents, Elected Officials. Since 2008 when the two entities joined forces, 2,600 law enforcement officials have received education on the topic of identity crime, prevention, and trends.

The FBI-LEEDA is considered a 501(c)(3) corporation, a type of non-profit. Their partner in the event, LifeLock®, has been considered by some as the industry leader in proactive identity theft protection.

Both parties will help to present a one-day and an advanced two-day summit. The summit will cover:

• Relevant Identity Theft Laws
• High Technology Identity Theft
• Identity Theft Awareness And Protection Strategies
• Databases To Assist In Identity Theft Investigations
• Victim’s Assistance
• Investigative Techniques

Hosted by Sheriff Lupe Valdez and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, the summit in Texas is free to all law enforcement. The next event will take place in Fargo, ND on May 24.

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There is a false belief circulating that children of a certain age are not targets for or are somehow immune to identity theft. This could not be any farther from the truth. Children are just as at risk for theft of their identity as any adult. When the crime actually happens to children, it cannot even become apparent that anything took place until years later.

Horror stories of newborns and middle-schoolers becoming victims of identity theft have become more and more frequent. Many of these stories turn out to be truthful. The sobering fact is this: your kids are at risk of identity theft.

Stopping Child Identity Theft

Depending on their age, the first step needs to be sitting down with your kids and explaining how important their information is. Children are using the web with increasing familiarity and much younger ages. Every time they log on they will be bombarded by offers requiring their name, address, etc. Scammers send out emails that say they are from the bank, or are oversea and need help, all of which ask for a slew of personal info. Cell phones, text messages and especially the risks with Facebook should be addressed too. The more educated your children are on the existence of the threat, the less possible a vulnerability will exist. Stress the importance of their SSN, PIN numbers, & bank info early on (early teens).

The rest is up to you.

If your kid has gotten pre-approved offers in the mail, red flags should go up. Find out why. Just like you, your children get a credit report every year too. Don’t carry their SSN cards or birth certificate with you unless it’s an isolated and necessary incent. If someone requests a copy of either, you need to be cautious. Ask why. School registration should really be the only case.

Hopefully this will ensure the safety of your kid’s identity.

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Many people in this country still have traditional mail boxes. Why not? They are, in many cases, beautiful accents to a yard and can add curb appeal. They days however, such aesthetic additions come with an inherent risk. These mailboxes do not have a lock on them. So anyone can come by and see who is delivering things to you. What’s worse, they can take what they want. In many cases they can do so without you ever noticing.

Even if you live in a neighborhood with a guarded front gate, the danger is still there. Do you know all the people who live there or how they financed their house? And then think about all the times you didn’t know the code to one of those communities and followed someone else in. What’s to say fraudsters couldn’t do the same?

According to Larry Logan, Senior Deputy of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department in Southern California, mail thieves often go “popcorning,” slang for cruising neighborhoods in search of outgoing mail left unattended, signaled by red flags in the upward position on mailboxes. “Everyday, somebody’s going up and down the street, looking in mailboxes.” When residents put mail in an unlocked curbside mailbox and put up the red flag to signal postal workers, it sends the same signal to burglars: Your mail is ready to be taken. He recommends taking your mail to a blue collection box. “Otherwise, you and your neighborhood will become a target.” ¹

You should realize that this is a false sense of security. Thieves searching for a new identity to steal do not bow to your security beliefs. It is not just an online crime.

The prevention of your identity is often as simple as making it harder for crooks to get to your mail. Remember, your new credit and debit cards as well as personal and financial documents all come through the mail. By forwarding your mail to a P.O. Box at the post office or a USP store by your local grocery store, you can assure that criminals won’t be taking your mail. I know it seems like a real inconvenience, but weight it against getting your life back and dealing with the government and you will see how small of a change in weekly routine it can be.

1)http://identitytheft911.org/articles/article.ext?sp=49

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