Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Most Americans believe the world financial crisis has increased their risk of identity theft or related crimes, according to the latest Unisys Security Index. The biannual survey of consumers in nine countries found that more than two-thirds of Americans are "extremely or very concerned" about other people obtaining and using their credit or debit card details -- with 90 percent at least "somewhat concerned." In addition, computer security remains a major concern. More than 40 percent of Americans are extremely or very concerned about security in relation to viruses or unsolicited emails. Three-quarters of Americans believe that the world financial crisis will increase the risk that they will personally experience identity theft or related crimes. More than one-quarter believe that the risk will increase substantially. "Financial security for Americans has moved from third place to front and center, number one," Tim Kelleher, vice president of enterprise security at Unisys, provider of information technology consulting services, told SCMagazineUS.com Monday. "People feel they are much more financially at risk." This has major implications for banks and other financial institutions, as well as internet businesses, he said. "Banks and businesses need to understand that customers are more wary than ever about using services that may compromise their personal data," Kelleher said. "If economic concerns increase these fears, companies need new strategies to strengthen customer confidence through accountability and transparency, which also plays to part of the Obama administration's call to action for government and business." The U.S. Security Index is based on a random telephone survey of 1,004 persons ages 18 and over. The first wave of the study was conducted in August 2007.

www.killdo.de.gg Most quality online stores. Know whether you are a trusted online retailer in the world. Whatever we can buy very good quality. and do not hesitate. Everything is very high quality. Including clothes, accessories, bags, cups. Highly recommended. This is one of the trusted online store in the world. View now www.retrostyler.com

For the second time in the same case, law enforcement in Denver turned away a key component in hundreds of instances of identity theft. The first time, it was a box full of stolen documents found in a storage unit, turned away by a Denver Police officer. This time, it was the main suspect, turned away by the Denver Sheriff's Department. The Denver Sheriff's Department admits the man believed to be at the center of an identity theft operation, 46-year-old Paul Simmons, tried to turn himself in at the Denver City Jail 16 hours before police arrested him. A warrant had been issued for his arrest and was entered into the system at 10:15 a.m, according to Sonny Jackson, Denver Police Spokesman. Sheriff's spokesperson Capt. Frank Gale told 9Wants to Know Tuesday that Simmons walked into the Denver City Jail around 8 p.m. Monday night. The Denver Sheriff's Department runs the city jail. It is not staffed by the Denver Police Department. Gale says Simmons told a sheriff's deputy he had received a call from an investigator with Denver Police saying he was wanted for questioning in connection with the identity theft case featured on 9NEWS. Gale says the sheriff's deputy then told Simmons there was not a record of him being wanted in the computer, but sent Simmons to check in with the Denver Police Department housed in a separate building across the courtyard at 1331 Cherokee St. Gale said the deputy did not know if Simmons ever made it to the Denver Police building. Denver Police spokesperson Sonny Jackson said Simmons never did. "We really wish he would have taken the 50 steps across the courtyard and talked to us, that would have saved us a lot of time today." Jackson said. "If he [Simmons] really wanted to turn himself in we would have been more than happy to take him into custody."

Privacy & security are individual rights and responsibilities, not just corporate or governmental responsibilities. Reliance on technology is bound to fail without motivation for all involved to find mutual benefits.

Identity theft and security is always in the spotlight through the constant stream of news stories about companies losing confidential customer or client data, such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, health histories and so forth. These "breaking news" stories now seem to happen so frequently that we scarcely pay attention to them unless, of course, we are directly impacted by them. They have, however, heightened the public awareness and have even spawned new Identity protection businesses. Information technology companies rightly react to this by developing new technologies to improve security and eagerly market these to CIOs as a way to protect the personal information of their customers and clients. While we should use these appropriately, we can't rely just on technology for Identity protection. While some of these security incidents involve someone hacking into a system, many involve a human failing. Examples include a laptop with confidential information being lost or stolen and employees e-mailing sensitive data to their personal e-mail accounts so they can work on it from home.

"Today, the Federal Trade Commission opened new areas of a "virtual mall" with content that will help kids learn to protect their privacy, spot frauds and scams, and avoid identity theft. The FTC Web site, www.ftc.gov/YouAreHere, introduces key consumer and business concepts and helps youngsters understand their role in the marketplace. The FTC is the nation's consumer protection agency. "YouAreHere presents practical lessons about money and business in a fun and familiar setting," said David Vladeck, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "The new content takes kids behind the scenes to raise their awareness of advertising and marketing, pricing and competition, fraud and identity theft. At the FTC's online mall, visitors play games, watch short animated films, and interact with customers and store owners. They can design and print advertisements for a shoe store, investigate suspicious claims in ads and sales pitches, learn to identify the catches behind bogus modeling schemes and vacation offers, and guess the retail prices of various candies based on their supply, demand, and production costs. At the Security Plaza, visitors can build a social networking page and see the unintended consequences of posting personal information. They also get tips on how to keep their computers safe while they're online. In the arcade, visitors can play Info Defender 3 and protect Earthlings from Cyclorian invaders who would steal their identities. The game teaches the importance of protecting personal information, including Social Security numbers. For parents and teachers, the site offers detailed fact sheets with ideas for related activities. Teachers can use the site to complement lessons in consumer economics, government, social studies, language arts, and critical thinking. The National Council for Economic Education has developed a lesson plan that prominently features YouAreHere; it is available on the Parents and Teachers page. "

"A New York computer technician has been charged with stealing the identities of more than 150 Bank of New York Mellon employees and using them to orchestrate a scheme that netted him more than $1.1 million, prosecutors said this week. Adeniyi Adeyemi, 27, of Brooklyn was indicted Wednesday on charges of grand larceny, identity theft and money laundering for crimes allegedly committed between Nov. 1, 2001 and April 30, 2009, according to a news release from Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. According to prosecutors, Adeyemi, who was employed as a computer technician working at the headquarters of Bank of New York, stole the personal information of dozens of bank employees, primarily from individuals in the information technology department. He then used the identities to open bank and brokerage accounts, which served as "dummy accounts" to receive stolen funds. Adeyemi then stole money from the bank accounts of numerous charities and nonprofit organizations, and transferred the funds into the dummy accounts, which he later withdrew or transferred to other accounts, prosecutors said."

Laws in Canada and other countries are increasingly helping technology force people to identify themselves where they never had to before, threatening privacy that allows people to function effectively in society, a new study has found. "What we're starting to see is a move toward making people more and more identifiable," University of Ottawa law professor Ian Kerr said Wednesday. His comments followed the launch of Lessons from the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society, a book summing up the study's findings, at a public reading in downtown Ottawa hosted jointly with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Kerr led the study with University of Ottawa criminology professor Valerie Steeves. They collaborated with 35 other researchers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands and Italy. The researchers reported that governments are choosing laws that require people to identify themselves and are lowering judicial thresholds defining when Identity information must be disclosed to law enforcement officials. That is allowing the wider use of new technologies capable of making people identifiable, including smartcards, security cameras, GPS, tracking cookies and DNA sequencing. Consequently, governments and corporations are able to do things like: * Embrace technologies such as radio frequency identification tags that can be used to track people and merchandise to analyze behaviour. * Boost video surveillance in public places. * Pressure companies such as internet service providers to collect and maintain records of identification information about their customers. While Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands and Italy all have national laws protecting privacy - that is, laws that allow citizens to control access to their personal data - such legal protection does not exist for anonymity, Kerr said. "Canada is quite similar [to other countries] with respect to anonymity. Namely, it's shrinking here just as it is there.

More than 6 million current and former customers of online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. will be able to benefit from the settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed over the theft of client contact information. Formal notice of a settlement agreement will be sent to people who used TD Ameritrade's services before mid-September 2007. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco approved a revised version of the settlement agreement earlier this month despite some misgivings about it. Last summer, Walker rejected an earlier version of the deal. Anyone who held an Ameritrade account or provided an e-mail address to the company before Sept. 14, 2007, could benefit from the lawsuit. The database that was breached included information on 6.2 million people. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they received unwanted e-mail ads about certain stocks. The ads appeared to be designed to manipulate the value of thinly traded stocks. Ameritrade officials and one of the lead plaintiff's attorneys, Scott Kamber, have said the data theft has not been linked to cases of identity theft. As part of the proposed settlement, the Omaha-based company will pay nearly $1.9 million in legal fees and cover the cost of one year of anti-spam service for the victims. Ameritrade also promised to better protect customer data. Those terms have not changed from the original proposed settlement. But the new agreement will more clearly state that Ameritrade customers were at risk of identity theft, and it will preserve customers' ability to pursue identity theft claims against Ameritrade. Most of the changes to the agreement happened because the Texas Attorney General's Office and a former named plaintiff objected to the previous deal. In his order, the judge questioned whether the settlement does enough to benefit Ameritrade clients whose information was stolen. "The court is particularly concerned that TD Ameritrade has agreed to pay the class counsel $1.87 million and yet the

There is pervasive fear of identity theft. Victims spend an extraordinary amount of time and money recovering from it. The government is doing something about it, but businesses may not be pleased to hear that the government's latest action is another unfunded mandate. New rules concerning identity theft prevention at financial companies go into effect on Friday May 1, 2009, but for most organizations, complying with the FTC's Red Flags Rule could be as simple as writing down rules and procedures already in place and having them certified by the Board. The rules are about procedures, not about data security, said Tiffany George, attorney for the division of privacy and identity protection at the FTC. She spoke on Tuesday at the FTC's workshop for businesses held on the campus of Fordham University in New York City. "The Red Flags Rule covers what to do when, despite our best efforts, thieves steal data," she said. As new regulations go, the FTC's Red Flags Rule will be less painful than many other recently enacted rules. For example, while Sarbanes-Oxley is considered a burden to many public companies, requiring several full-time staff, the Red Flags Rule can likely be handled by legal or compliance staff already in place.

A former IT analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and his brother were arrested Friday on charges that they took out loans using stolen information, including sensitive information belonging to federal employees at the bank. Prosecutors allege that Curtis Wiltshire, 34, took out student loans totalling US$73,000 using the stolen information. His brother, Kenneth Wiltshire, 40, is charged with using the identities of two federal employees to try and obtain a loan for a 2006 Sea Ray 340 Sundancer speedboat. The charges (pdf) come two months after federal investigators found two 2006 student loan applications on a thumb drive attached to the work computer of Curtis Wiltshire, who had worked at the Reserve Bank for nearly eight years as an information and technical analyst. According to court documents, that investigation was unrelated to the fraud charges. Wiltshire was dismissed soon after the drive was found on around Feb. 15, prosecutors said. The charges were filed in the federal court in Manhattan. The two men could not be reached for comment Friday and the names of their lawyers were not included in the court documents. Curtis Wiltshire had "access to computer files containing information about employees of the [federal bank], including their names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and photographs," U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Cordel James said in an affidavit filed in the case. Curtis Wiltshire was charged with bank fraud and identity theft and faces more than 30 years in prison if convicted. His brother was charged with mail fraud and identity theft and faces a maximum of 22 years in prison.

Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car. It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker's gold. Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet. Embedding identity documents - passports, drivers licenses, and the like - with RFID chips is a no-brainer to government officials. Increasingly, they are promoting it as a 21st century application of technology that will help speed border crossings, safeguard credentials against counterfeiters, and keep terrorists from sneaking into the country. But Paget's February experiment demonstrated something privacy advocates had feared for years: That RFID, coupled with other technologies, could make people trackable without their knowledge or consent. He filmed his drive-by heist, and soon his video went viral on the Web, intensifying a debate over a push by government, federal and state, to put tracking technologies in identity documents and over their potential to erode privacy. Putting a traceable RFID in every pocket has the potential to make everybody a blip on someone's radar screen, critics say, and to redefine Orwellian government snooping for the digital age. "Little Brother," some are already calling it - even though elements of the global surveillance web they warn against exist only on drawing boards, neither available nor approved for use.

A Troy woman learned Tuesday that she will spend 180 days in the Livingston County Jail for stealing the identity of a local woman who was dying. Judge Stanley J. Latreille also sentenced Vershawn Jones, who earlier pleaded guilty to identity theft, to four years of probation. Assistant Prosecutor Pamela Maas said the victim, who was not in court Tuesday, wanted to know how Jones, 38, got his wife's identification. His wife, Maas noted, was dying in a Hospice facility at the time. Jones, who said she operated a mortgage business, said she got it from one of four employees who brought her applications from people seeking mortgages. Those applications included personal information, such as Social Security numbers, she said. When pressed for names, Jones glanced at her attorney and shrugged. "I apologize to the victim and the victim's family," she said. "I've done the best I can running my own business." Maas initially requested that the state be allowed to withdraw from the plea deal that called for her office to recommend Jones serve no more than 90 days in the county jail after noting Jones had twice been sent to jail for failing to show for court hearings. While Jones apologized, Latreille was unmoved, telling the defendant "you're fortunate you're not going to prison."

Healthcare organizations are losing more than just names, addresses and Social Security numbers. When their data gets stolen, patients lose the privacy of their medical conditions, treatments and medications while at the same time falling prey to identity theft, medical billing fraud and other criminal schemes. Theft of electronic medical records is on the rise, and the implications are getting more serious. In a 2008 survey of identity theft victims, the identity Theft Resource Center found that 67% had been charged for medical services they never received and 11% were denied health or life insurance due to unexplained reasons.

Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke was among hundreds of victims of an identity fraud ring that stole more than $2.1 million from consumers and financial institutions across the United States, Newsweek magazine reported on its website. The head of the U.S. central bank and his wife were swept up in a case against the ring after her purse, with personal checks inside, was snatched at a coffee shop in August 2008, Newsweek reported, citing recently filed court documents. Someone soon began cashing checks on the Bernanke family bank account, a crime that became part of a wide-ranging federal identity theft investigation that was already underway.

With the ink barely dry on headlines about what could be the biggest security breach in history (identity thieves hacked into payment processor Heartland Payment Services, possibly gaining access to the credit-card information of millions of consumers) signing up for a credit-monitoring service may have jumped a few notches on your to-do list. After all, paying $12 or so a month seems like a small price to pay for the peace of mind that -- through regular alerts about activity on your credit reports and other monitoring services -- you'll be protected from identity theft. Right? Think again.

Canadians who travelled to the United States in 2008 are being advised to check their credit-card statements and watch for signs of identity theft after a massive security breach at a U. S.-based company that processes millions of credit cards. Canada's Privacy Commissioner said yesterday she was shocked to learn that New Jersey-based Heartland Payment Systems, which processes credit-card transactions for more than 250,000 businesses in the United States, had found "malicious software" in its operating system. "I'm amazed to see something this significant can still happen with the importance that not only privacy commissioners, but experts everywhere, are placing on security," Jennifer Stoddard said. "I was concerned to see this going on and the size of it." Tech experts say the hack could be one of the largest ever credit-or debit-card data breaches, and that Canadians should watch closely for signs of identity theft.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico-An identity-theft ring that catered to illegal immigrants seeking to establish themselves in the U.S. stole the personal data of 7,000 public school children in Puerto Rico, officials said Tuesday. Members of the ring broke into about 50 schools across the U.S. island territory over the past two years to steal birth certificates and Social Security numbers to sell to the illegal immigrants, the FBI and other agencies announced at a news conference. The victims were largely unaware their information had been stolen-and likely would not have learned of the thefts until they became adults and tried to buy something on credit, said assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Diaz Rex. "A kid is going to have a perfect credit history," Diaz said. "They reach 18, 20 years of age. They go buy a car and their credit is damaged." The authorities did not disclose how they uncovered the ring but said seven people have been arrested and one more is being sought. At least some of them were illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Investigators determined the birth certificates and Social Security numbers were sold as a package in a number of states including Texas, Alaska and California, for up to $250, authorities said. Two suspects are accused of possessing nearly 6,000 birth certificates and Social Security cards. One was accused of intending to sell 40 Social Security cards for nearly $3,000, while another was seeking the same amount for 12 cards. The suspects in custody were being held on charges that include aggravated identity theft and social security fraud and face up to 15 years in prison, said U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez. One suspect had been previously arrested for the kidnapping of a Dominican man last year that led to the shooting of a police officer during an FBI raid, said Luis Fraticelli, special FBI agent in charge of Puerto Rico. It is unclear if other members of the ring are at large, and whether they received help from sch

An Orange County woman accused of using a false identity to obtain breast implants from a plastic surgeon is now facing three felony charges, including commercial burglary, grand theft and identity theft. Yvonne Jean Pampellonne, 30, nicknamed the 'Breast Implant Bandit', appeared in a Westminster court Wednesday. She did not enter a plea and asked that her arraignment be continued so she could hire a new attorney. Pampellone surrendered to police in March after detectives caught up with her using breast implant tracking numbers. Police say that in September of 2008 Pampellonne used the personal information of another woman to establish a line of credit at the Pacific Center for Plastic Surgery in Huntington Beach. Doctors performed $12,000 in liposuction and breast augmentation surgery at the center, police say, charging $12,000 to the phony line of credit and exchanging her existing implants for new ones. Medical staff at the center became suspicious after Pampellonne never returned for follow-up appointments. Because Pampellone had old breast implants replaced, they were able to track her down using the serial numbers that appear on every set of implants. Pampellone faces 3 years, 8 months in prison if convicted. She remains free on $20,000 bail and is due back in court on June 29th.

The state's highest court told Bergen County yesterday to release 8 million pages of real estate documents -- including mortgage information -- to fulfill a request filed under the state's public records law, but that Social Security numbers included in them must be kept private. The justices also said the company requesting the information should pay the $460,000 it will cost the county to remove the Social Security numbers from records spanning more than two decades. The court unanimously agreed that the documents, requested by a business that wants to sell electronic access to this information, are public records under the state's Open Public Records Act. But it stressed some of the personal information, if released, would hurt residents. "The request was made on behalf of a commercial business planning to catalogue and sell the information by way of an easy-to-search computerized database. Were that to occur, an untold number of citizens would face an increased risk of identity theft," Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote for the court. Bergen County officials called the decision a victory for all New Jersey residents concerned about identity theft.

The federal GLBA, HIPAA, FACTA and its Red Flags and Disposal Rules, state data Breach Notification Laws and many other federal and state laws and industry regulations like PCI-DSS are intended to protect the privacy and security of consumer's personally identifiable and financial information entrusted to businesses and other organizations. Many suchidentity theft, id theft, government security, government privacy regulations aim to prevent identity theft and privacy violations. While some businesses have been negligent in securing information, other businesses have been victimized by black hat hackers or "crackers" who operate ahead of the cybersecurity technology curve. Cybersecurity is an ongoing challenge for businesses and for government as discussed in the President's Cyberspace Policy Review. In the four-year period ending in 2008, 23% of all data breaches reported were attributed to hackers. For those data breaches involving more than one million profiles, hacking was identified as the cause in 66% of the breaches according to a recent research report on data breach risk factors.

Identity theft concerns are focused on the security and necessity of the collection process. Collecting personal information just because you can is unsafe. Organizations can reduce privacy risks by not collecting unnecessary personal info. Once the data gets into the data life cycle pipeline, the cost of managing and destroying it escalates. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 9 million people have their identities stolen every year. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, more than 200 million instances of data breaches have occurred since the beginning of 2005, and they show no signs of letting up. In the first quarter of 2008 alone, more than 85 million incidents were reported. The causes of data breaches run the gamut: Hackers get unencrypted, transmitted data and data at rest; laptops are stolen or lost; storage Relevant Products/Services devices are lost by third-party shipping companies; flash drives or PDAs are left lying around; Social Security numbers are accidentally printed on envelopes; or data is found on discarded computers. This article examines the organizational risks to CPAs and their clients or corporate employers of improperly managed data throughout the data life cycle. It also discusses best data management practices and proper procedures for responding to a data breach. Data breaches, whatever the cause, are costly. According to a study by the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data breach in 2007 was $6.3 million. The average cost to an organization per record compromised is about $197, which is typically spent on phone calls for customer notification, providing free credit monitoring, discounts on membership fees, or discounts on merchandise to make up for the security Relevant Products/Services breach. Some organizations also experience an increase in customer turnover. The organization typically spends additional money in data protection Relevant Products/Services enhancements. Companies sanctioned by