Latest Identity Theft News:
E-Mail Spoofing and Phishing
The FBI did a press release where Assistant Director of the Cyber Division, Jana Monroe, stated that fake e-mails that attempt to trick consumers into giving out their personal information are the latest and most troubling scam on the internet. The FBI’s Internet Fraud Complaing Center (IFCC) has received a steady increase in complaints aobut unsolicited
emails that are directing consumers to a fake customer service type of web site that is contributing to a rise in identity theft and credit card fraud.
Spoofing (aka phishing) is a fraudulant attempt to get an internet user to believe they are receiving an email from a trusted source enabling the scammer to retrieve the persons information which then allows them to go commit fraud and identity theft. In one of these fake emails, the header of the email will appear to have originated from a trusted source but is not in reality. Spammers often use spoofing to get consumers to open and potentialy respond to their solicitations.
The FBI offers these warning to help protect yourself:
- If you receive an e-mail that asks you for personal financial or any identity information, use extreme caution.
- If you need to update your information on a website, open a new internet browser window and type the legitimate company’s website.
- Always be aware of the emails you receive. Pay attention to the “from” header and if it doesn’t look familiar, use caution. If you receive anything that looks like its from your financial institution and you are in doubt, call your bank number and not any phone number that may be in a suspicous email.
- If you have any doubts about an email or web address, always call the company directly and report any suspicious or fraudulent emails to your internet service provider.
Additionally, Reputation.com suggests using strong passwords to protect your email accounts.
Here is more info on this from About.com – US Gov Info – http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/consumer/a/aaspoofing.htm
Electronic Pickpocketing
As technology makes our lives more convenient, our personal security level may be at risk. The RFID technology that allows you to wave your credit card instead of swiping it is extremely easy to hack. As in the video below, a hacker can purchase a credit card scanning machine and easily walk next to you and retrieve your credit card information without you ever knowing. RFID works on a radio frequency making it easy to tap into those 
radio signals with the right equipment. It is happening so sneakily that it goes under the radar and unnoticed. But you can protect yourself. Simply don’t get a card with this technology. There are also products you can buy that help block the signal, so if your card does have RFID , it will show this symbol…
Here are two companies with products that can help protect your identity…
http://www.stewartstand.com/
http://www.idstronghold.com/
Beware of Browser Tabnapping
Tabnapping- (Tab + Kidnapping =Tabnapping) is when an already opened browser tab gets hacked by clever phishers hoping to retrieve your information and passwords by changing already opened tabs and making your site appear to have timed out prompting you to enter in your login information again.
So how can you combat this tricky scheme? Simple. When using multiple tabs for long periods of time or any web browser and you have a timed out site, close it and open a new browser to get to your same location. And always check the URL to be sure it is indeed the site you want. Phishers are masters and tricking you by switching just one letter in a URL and if you dont pay attention, they soon own your log in info. So again, always carefully check the URL and when in doubt, close your browser and open a new one.
Also there are some programs that help block these types of schemes like RoboForm. It is a great password manager that also saves the specific URL login page to the password and if they do not match, RoboForm will not log you in keeping your log in crudentials safe. A great program for those who work online and have many sites they use requiring passwords.
Holiday Season Scams
How To Avoid Being Scammed This Holiday Season!
It’s that time of year again. Holiday madness, crazed shoppers and packed malls. This also means that scams will be on the rise. Tis their season too! With Eight weeks till Christmas, it is time to be more alert. Here are a few tips in helping you keep your guard up.
Beware of pocket pickers! With packed stores, there are many distractions. Carry your wallet in your front pocket gentlemen and ladies don’t carry your purses just by your hand as it is too easy to run up and grab it. Also ladies, keep your purses zipped up.
Another tip is to make a copy front and back of each credit card you will be carrying in your wallet so if the unthinkable does happen to you, there is no guess work of what cards you had in your wallet and you can call your credit card companies as quickly as possible.
Don’t EVER give your bank information or personal information over an email, txt, or call no matter how official it sounds. The newest scam is receiving an email or txt with an 800 number to call with an automated system to verify your account and personal info. Don’t do it! If in doubt, walk in to your bank and ask or call the number that is on the back of your bank card or credit card.
Know your surroundings, especially at the ATM. Thieves not only put card readers in the machine, but they set up a hidden camera to capture your pin. So check out the cash machine before doing anything and if something looks suspicious, call the bank.
Tis the season to give! And we should! But be aware of charity scams. You can always go to sites like charitywatch.org or charitynavigator.org to check out an organization. Or you can always check out the bbb.org.
And finally, as it won’t affect your identity but would be a huge bummer, there is a new gift card scam. Thieves have a machine that can scan the gift cards that hang in the check out counter that captures the cards information. Then when you load the card, they go spend the money before the person who received it as a gift can! So the best thing to do is ask the cashier for a gift card from behind the counter and keep your receipt to it incase you run into any problems.
Be alert and know your surroundings to have a Happy Holiday Season!
TrustedID’s Risk Rating Service
Score Helps Consumers Prevent Identity Theft by Calculating Their Risk and Suggesting Steps to Reduce It.
San Francisco, Calif. – October 27, 2009 : TrustedID, the nation’s leading provider of identity theft prevention solutions, today announced the immediate availability of its new Identity Threat Score. This risk rating service helps consumers reduce their chances of falling victim to identity thieves by calculating their risk level as a numerical score. The service also suggests steps that customers can use to improve their score and lower their risk of theft.
The Identity Threat Score serves as an early warning system to help prevent identity theft before it happens. This score employs TrustedID’s exclusive IdentityScan™ scoring model to analyze data from hundreds of sources, including public records, credit reports, the Internet and other proprietary databases. Using this data, consumers are assigned an Identity Threat Score, on a scale of 0-500 that indicates their risk of ID theft as being high (over 400), low (0-300), or somewhere in between. Based on this score, the system suggests immediate preventative steps that consumers can take to reduce their risk and improve their score.
“Understanding your risk is the first step to preventing identity theft,” said Scott Mitic, CEO and founder of TrustedID. “It’s easy to keep track of things you can control – like safeguarding your wallet and not giving out your personal information over the phone. But there are literally billions of bits of data floating around about each and every one of us that we can’t easily control – online browsing and shopping habits, magazine subscriptions, catalog mailing lists, and many others. The Identity Threat Score helps you discover how this relatively unknown data can affect your risk of becoming a victim and how you can reduce that risk.”
Identity Threat Score with IdentityScan empowers consumers with access to the type of sophisticated technology that is currently used by major credit card providers around the globe to analyze risk. The system works by identifying specific patterns and combinations of information proven to increase a consumer’s risk of identity theft. By analyzing this data, IdentityScan is able to accurately predict the likelihood of identity theft, while limiting the number of false positive alerts that lead to unnecessary concern for consumers.
With its direct, real-time communication with consumers, Identity Threat Score provides up-to-the-minute risk analysis to further enhance the accuracy of IdentityScan’s scoring models, identify real cases of fraud or theft and the patterns of data that lead up to them.
“It’s one thing for us to show you that you are at risk, but the Identity Threat Score goes one step further to help you reduce that risk,” Mitic said. “Based on your individual risk profile and score, Threat Score provides information that you may implement immediately to help reduce your risk, giving you a more proactive solution that doesn’t just warn you about the problem.”
Identity Threat Score is the newest addition to TrustedID’s comprehensive suite of identity theft protection and prevention that recently received a Five-Star rating from Javelin Strategy & Research comparing the identity theft and fraud prevention services of 20 vendors. TrustedID was the only vendor in the report to address medical identity theft, and also earned high marks for its lost wallet assistance and CreditLockTM, which allows customers to block credit bureaus from releasing their credit reports to third-party vendors.
About TrustedID
TrustedID delivers proactive identity theft protection solutions to help safeguard individuals, families, and businesses. With the industry’s most comprehensive platform of identity theft prevention solutions, TrustedID provides over a dozen forms of protection. TrustedID’s IDFreeze service includes access to our 24/7 On-Call Protection team and is backed by a $1,000,000 warranty. The company’s latest innovation, Identity Threat Score, calculates an individual’s immediate risk of falling prey to identity theft and recommends immediate steps that can be taken to prevent it. These and other aspects of TrustedID’s protection are based on proprietary technology that dramatically reduces the likelihood of identity theft. TrustedID’s Data Breach Solutions group serves businesses of all sizes with protection for data breaches, immediately safeguarding the identities of those directly affected.