John Gardner Online

John Gardner, the man I credit as the Premiere authority on Identity Theft issues, has a blog here:
http://johngardneronline.com/

I've updated my links at right. I encourage you to visit his website and subscribe. Much of the information I post here in the future may well come from or simply be a link to a posting on his blog.

If it weren't for John's efforts to educate everyone about ID Theft, I would never have met you or become involved with your company as a Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist.

I've just finally ordered his newest book "If You are Me, then Who am I?" today and I'll go ahead and recommend that you do the same. Information is on his website here http://johngardneronline.com/?page_id=3

Here is part of his Bio posted on his site here http://johngardneronline.com/?page_id=2

John P. Gardner, Jr. is an attorney and one of the nation’s leading experts on Identity Theft. While others were scrambling to tell people to lock their mailboxes and shred their credit card statements, Mr. Gardner was warning consumers of the potential health risks, Social Security and tax issues, financial disasters, and the reality that they could face false imprisonment as a result of someone stealing their identity. He has consulted with various State Governmental entities including members of the Kentucky Senate, the Michigan House of Representatives, and the South Carolina Senate Finance and House Judiciary Committee Staff on Identity Theft, Privacy and Data Protection legislation. He has helped to implement Identity Theft Protection programs which today protect hundreds of thousands of Americans identities and even more recently, he has been consulting with Major Corporations, Hospitals, Government Agencies and Small Businesses on how to better protect the Identities and Non-public Information of their employees and customers. Mr. Gardner has traveled extensively across North America speaking to groups and providing training to many organizations on Identity Theft, Privacy, and Data Protection.

Immigration issues and Identity Theft

As I may have said in our class, illegal immigrant workers do not all know that Identity Theft is a crime, or at least they fully understand it.

That point is made in this article by this statement, "In at least hundreds of cases last year, workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up."

It also touches on the supply and demand issues and doesn't mention that getting an identity is a problem when they state "..traveled to Chicago and bought numbers from someone who trades in counterfeit IDs." I don't see that they indicated this was a difficult or mystifying process. It is presented as pretty straightforward from the way I read this.


The article is on Yahoo News here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090222/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_identity_theft

Payroll cards subject of largest ATM heist,..EVER

NetworkWorld has an article detailing the database breach of RBSWorldPay (one of the largest payroll debit card issuers) & the extremely well co-ordinated effort of a "small army" of people spanning multiple countries that, within 30min, stole approximately 9 million dollars.

Not even Hollywood could dream this one up........

In addition to the theft, 1.5 million people may have had their personal data stolen along w/ 1.1 million social security numbers being breached.

copy & paste this if the link above does not work.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/38366

Data Breaches Are More Costly Than Ever

The Washington Post cites a study by the Ponemon Institute about the cost of Identity Theft to businesses. As you may know, this is some of the information Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott wants you to know and which I covered in your training class. Notice that "the company's stock lost 42 percent of its value" after the announcement and that mitigating damages like this are the key reason your employer had me come in to teach your class:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/02/AR2009020203064.html?hpid=sec-tech

Organizations that experienced a data breach in 2008 paid an average of $6.6 million last year to rebuild their brand image and retain customers, according to a new study.

Ponemon Institute, a Tucson-based research firm, looked at 43 organizations that reported a data breach last year and found that roughly $202 was spent on each consumer record compromised.

Heartland Payment Systems Data Breach

Bankinfosecurity.com has several articles related to the first major data breach of 2009 and the class action lawsuit that followed 7 days later:

http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/heartland_breach.php
The Heartland Payment Systems [HPY] data breach is the first major information security incident of 2009.

http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1181
Exactly one week after the Heartland Payment Systems (HPY) breach was first announced to the public, the first lawsuit has been filed against the payments processor.

Win a free shredder over at Lifehacker.com

Lifehacker will be sponsoring a contest in the near future to win a new "Jam-Proof" paper shredder. A paper shredder is always a good thing to have on hand (especially this time of year). Don't forget that once your garbage hits the curb it becomes "public property" & is an open invitation for anyone to have access to your (non-shredded) documents.
http://lifehacker.com/5140982/tax-season-and-what-it-means-for-identity-thieves

Happy (belated) data privacy day !

Even though we forgot write a post about it (whoops). I sure hope that you were able to celebrate data privacy day back on Jan. 28th. The main idea is to devote 1 day a year to actually thinking about & discussing data privacy concerns. Since alot of this data is comprised from databases it fits snuggly side-by-side into the Id Theft concerns we like to discuss.

Intel , Microsoft, Google, along with several other companies are behind this official holiday. Here are a few links that can help in securing your data.

1. Nothing beats Pre-Paid Legals' Identity Theft Protection
2. Lifehacker always has good tips.
3. The IAPP is a worldwide organization dedicated to spreading information about ID privacy .
4. Here is site for MAC users with some good tips

Free software links to help you keep your computer (& identity) safe:

Commodo Internet Security suite is a well rounded, low system resource package

PC-Tools Antivirus is a decent realtime Antivirus scanner. The same company also created Threatfire to compliment any other (even paid ones like Norton's & McAfee) antivirus scanner. *Caveat* : Threatfire should not be used by itself but to enhance a "library based" scanner that receives nightly updates.

There is no excuse to NOT encrypt your Windows hard drive with the free, "Open Source" Truecrypt.

Don't forget to sign your mail too! There is free software available to integrate with your MS Outlook.

Of course, nothing beats physical security & awareness wherever you are.