ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS
2011
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Have you ever watched a flock of seagulls on the beach? I live in close proximity to the ocean, and I see them all day: fishing, eating, and ultimately stealing from each other. Usually a more aggressive seagull chases and screams at a gull that’s just cracked open a clam. Sometimes the aggresso...
08/31/2011
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Colton Harris Moore was busted for committing over 100 burglaries in the Pacific Northwest. He stole cars, speedboats and airplanes (at least 3). He is known as the “Barefoot Burglar” because he kicked off his shoes running from the police through the woods. He was a “door knob jiggler”. Most of...
08/31/2011
Who is responsible for financial losses due to fraud? The bank, or the customers whose accounts have been drained? One Michigan judge recently decided in favor of Comerica Bank customers, holding the bank responsible for approximately $560,000 out of a total of nearly $2 million in unrecovered lo...
08/31/2011
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We are increasingly reliant on online calendars and address books, but when you store everything in the cloud, there is the possibility that your essential data could evaporate. Some insist that you have nothing to worry about but what if you got hacked and all your data was deleted? What if you...
08/31/2011
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This title of this post is a security industry axiom. In other words, we can strive for security, and by making this effort we put ourselves on a path to security. But while we may achieve a relative degree of security, we can never be 100% secure. Even Fort Knox is vulnerable. We can, however, ...
08/24/2011
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Phishing of course is when you receive a fraud based email designed to trick you into clicking links and entering your personal information. In some cases when clicking those links you may download a virus. Their intention is to bypass your computers security. Phishing is emerging as sophisticat...
08/24/2011
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More than ten years ago, when I began speaking to organizations about personal security and identity theft, headlines often read “Utility Worker Steals Identities” or “Human Resource Officers Steal Identities” and even “Police Officer Steals Identities.” Back then the primary concern was insider...
08/24/2011
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I’m a little more than a casual online shopper, so I make lots of electronic payments. I prefer to avoid stores, so I buy almost everything aside from food via the Internet. I frequently use eBay. I’m also something of an airline mileage fanatic, so I prefer to pay with a credit card that earns m...
08/24/2011
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Has your computer ever refused to turn on when you hit the power button? Or maybe it turned on, but only to display a blue screen? The best (really the worst) is when you’ve been working on a document or presentation all day, and your hard drive crashes. If this has yet to happen to you, you’re ...
08/17/2011
The most basic advice for protecting your own identity is to protect your Social Security number. The obvious solution is simply never to disclose your number, but this is silly, since, depending on your age, you have probably provided it to hundreds of people, on hundreds of forms. It now sits ...
08/17/2011