General

March 19, 2020

Coronavirus Fear and Anxiety Drives Phishing Scams

I read a great article last week by Risk Based Security – a leader in vulnerability intelligence – about modern phishing attempts (please see here) and how Coronavirus Fear and Anxiety Drives Phishing Scams. “malicious attackers are targeting unsuspecting people on the web.” This article said there was a “tendency to associate phishing with crude boilerplate emails, dubious attachments, and poor attention spans”. But, sophisticated “attackers were spoofing system update prompts or redirecting users to pages with all sorts of dubious code.” But it gets worse. Cyber thieves and ID theft criminals didn’t are already taking advantage of fear and anxiety surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic. Risk-Based Security then released another article titled Coronavirus Isn’t the Only Virus Going Around (please see here) reporting that “malicious attackers will always find new ways to target individuals and organizations. This time, hackers are installing malware on computers and harvesting user credentials by preying on […]

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 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 […]