November 2019

November 25, 2019

SENIOR IDENTITY THEFT TO GET SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE

Brian Thompson General, Identity Theft senior identity theft/ senior fraud / cybercrime / personal privacy

The latest research and identity theft trends indicate significant patterns. Patterns that can help consumers and businesses mitigate their risks against identity theft. One of these trends points to the unfortunate potential that senior identity theft is going to get significantly worse. Research Based on the first half of this year – where 11 of the largest 13 data breach events occurred at medical or healthcare organizations (please see here) affecting nearly 24 million healthcare-related records. And we believe senior identity theft and fraud will get significantly worse in 2020. When you think about lost or stolen Personally Identifiable Information (PII), most people think about: credit card information, bank account information, taxpayer identity theft and refund fraud, utility identity theft and fraud, and credential identity theft such as driver’s license or passport fraud. Healthcare is a Target According to Protenus, a healthcare compliance analytics company, (please see here) this healthcare […]

November 18, 2019

What is Dark Web Monitoring?

Brian Thompson Identity Theft

What is Dark Web Monitoring in the world of identity theft? How can Dark Web Monitoring help mitigate the risks of Identity theft and Fraud? But wait, what are the Deep, Dark and Surface Web? The Surface Web is what you think of when you think of the internet. Any site you are accessing through search engines only makes up about .03% of the internet available. 99.97% of the internet is made up of un-indexed pages, or the Deep Web. The Deep web is often confused with the Dark web but they are two very distinctive things. The deep web is the entire web that is not accessible by conventional search engines but the dark web is a certain website within the deep web that is linked to criminal activity and illegal market places. For a more in-depth explanation check out this article: What’s the difference between Surface, Deep & Dark Web?? – […]

November 15, 2019

PERSONAL PRIVACY AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)

Brian Thompson General, Identity Theft, Uncategorized

Have you ever thought about how installing smart or connected devices such as a residential doorbell or security camera using a Wi-Fi connection can put your personal or business data at risk of being hacked or sold to third parties like advertisers? Personal privacy and the internet of things should be on all of our minds as we continue to become more and more connected. Day to Day Convenience An October 1, 2019 article titled Smart Home Devices and Privacy Risk (please see here) states “while ‘smart home’ or internet of things (IoT) devices have become more prevalent and may make every day or business tasks more convenient, they also diminish consumers’ privacy and introduce serious risks, for both users and device developers and manufacturers.” According to Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data, there will be 75 billion connected devices worldwide by 2025 (please see here). Connected Devices When I […]

November 6, 2019

Could ID Theft Cost You Your Home?

Brian Thompson Identity Theft

But it is your house!? You have worked hard your whole life. You have paid off your house. Retirement looks comfortable and you are thinking of using some of your home equity to buy a second home. You go to the bank to apply for your loan and the loan officer cannot seem to confirm that you actually own your home. In addition, the tax records reveal someone else not only owns the home you’ve lived in for years but that they have taken out a large mortgage against the house. Suddenly, your net worth has dropped by thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. So, could ID Theft Cost Your Your Home?…YES Identity Theft…whether it is your social security number or other personally identifying information that is stolen, it is traumatic. Personally, it was a huge concern when someone stole my identity and purchased 4 cell phones from a Best Buy […]