Archive for the ‘identity theft’ Category

Washington Post: Ways to thwart ID theft when traveling

Friday, May 10th, 2013

The Washington Post’s Navigator column discusses ways that individuals can protect themselves from identity theft when they’re traveling: One of the latest threats against travelers is invisible and silent: wireless attacks that siphon your credit card number, personal information and passwords. Anything with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip, including your ...

Bloomberg News: Iris Scans Seen Shrinking $7 Billion Medical Data Breach

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

Bloomberg News reports that hospitals are looking to biometric technology, including iris scans, as a defense against security breaches and medical identity theft: Clinics and hospitals around the world are acquiring technology that identifies people based on physical traits to improve patient safety and stamp out fraud. HCA Holdings Inc. (HCA) hospitals in London, ...

8 Tips to Keep Your Credit Card Information Safe When Shopping Online

Friday, December 14th, 2012

How to Keep Your Credit Card Safe Online Using your credit card to buy something online has become an almost daily habit for most people, and it’s especially popular around the holidays. Even so, there are many people who are still uncomfortable with submitting their credit card information online. ...

Teenage Hacker ‘Cosmo the God’ Sentenced by California Court

Friday, November 9th, 2012

Cosmo the God in a park near his Long Beach home. Photo: Sandra Garcia/Wired The 15 year-old UG Nazi hacker known as Cosmo* or Cosmo the God was sentenced in juvenile court on Wednesday in Long Beach, California. According to Cosmo, he pleaded guilty to multiple felonies in exchange ...

LifeLock’s IPO Is Unimpressive, But Not as Bad as Its Checkered Past

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

LifeLock, a company that promises to protect consumers from identity theft for $25, debuted on the public markets Wednesday, just two and a half years after the nation’s top consumer protection authorities fined the company $12 million for making false claims to Americans. The IPO didn’t go very well, ...

What New College Students Need to Know About Money

Monday, August 27th, 2012

Most new college students enter into higher education with their eyes wide open. It’s a milestone in life and for most, it’s the first time to really set out on their own. Unfortunately, there isn’t much financial education to go along with this transition into adulthood and that can ...

More Americans Worried About Cybarmegeddon Than Terrorism, Study Finds

Friday, May 11th, 2012

Photo: Adrian Boliston /Flickr More Americans want the presidential candidates to focus on protecting the government and the electrical grid against hackers than fighting terrorism groups. That’s according to a new security study by Unisys (.pdf), which found that the three highest priorities for Americans when it comes to ...

Mashable: Infographic on History of the Password and Data Encryption

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Mashable has a great privacy-related infographic about the history of the password and data encryption. “Before digital encryption and data lockers — and before the concept of identity theft even existed — passwords and their kin guarded secrets and kept conversations A-to-B.” View the infographic here. See the rest here: Mashable: Infographic on History of ...

New York Times: Web Site Stole Job Seekers’ Data in Tax-Fraud Scheme, Prosecutors Say

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

The New York Times reports on a case in New York that concerns charges of identity theft and tax fraud: A Web site that promised to connect people with much-needed jobs during the recession was actually a means to steal the applicants’ personal information in a scheme to file fraudulent ...

NPR: Identity Theft A Growing Concern For Businesses

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

NPR reports that companies are increasingly concerned about identity theft: You’ve heard of identity theft — someone using a person’s credit information or a Social Security number for ill-gotten gains. Well, experts say similar crimes are also affecting businesses. Business identity theft involves posing as a legitimate business in order ...

Digital Trends: Three reasons why ID theft increased in 2011 and how you can protect yourself

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Digital Trends reports on the issue of identity theft and how people can protect the privacy of their data: Last year saw an increase in identity theft incidents when compared to 2010. According to a fraud report from Javelin Strategy & Research, there has been an increase of 13 percent in ID ...

6 Worst Data Breaches of 2011

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

When it comes to data breaches, how does 2011 compare with previous years? A new report from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) notes 535 breaches during 2011, involving 30.4 million sensitive records. But that’s just a conservative estimate, since not all data breaches see the light of day. “Because ...