Blog / Identity Theft

Close a huge loophole for credit card fraud

Jul 18, 2009 by Tom Fragala

There is a huge loophole for criminals that want to take over your credit card account. They can get your account number and change your home address and phone number; redirecting all future statements and calls from customer service. Any...

May 20, 2009 by Tom Fragala

Affinion Security Center recently announced the results of a nationwide survey on the impact if identity theft. The fascinating results centered around the disparity of the impact of identity theft on the sexes. Women are 26% more likely to experience...

May 4, 2009 by Tom Fragala

Exclusive discount coupon for blog readers. Save 40% on a myTruston.com monthly subscription! Instead of the regular $10/month fee, you pay just $6/month. So you save $48 a year. Click here and signup for myTruston Plus. After you register and begin using...

Feb 26, 2009 by Tom Fragala

The FTC just released their 2008 report on identity theft called "Consumer Sentinel Network Complaint Data Book". Dark Reading says this FTC report shows that identity fraud complaints increased 20 percent from 2007 to 2008 and remains the top consumer...

Jan 9, 2009 by Tom Fragala

A new IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit opened October 1. Victims of identity theft can call a toll-free number Monday through Friday 8am to 8pm (unsure of timezone). That number is (800) 908-4490. When calling you can: Report identity fraud...

Dec 6, 2008 by Tom Fragala

In an unprecedented case, 3 out of 4 German households have had bank account data compromised--and it's for sale on the black market. More from Breitbart: The details of bank accounts held by 21 million Germans are for sale on...

Nov 18, 2008 by Tom Fragala

As of November 1, 2008, new Red Flag Rules are in effect to help protect consumers from identity theft. These rules are part of the federal FACT Act of 2003. According to the FTC: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the...

Oct 25, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Be careful about downloading anything from file sharing sites. Now there's news of hackers using videos for Barack Obama and John McCain to lure unsuspecting people to comprmise their computers. Internet users who download authentic-looking campaign videos for Barack Obama...

Aug 11, 2008 by Tom Fragala

An article about identity theft in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel lists myTruston as one of the ID theft protection products worth checking out. ...

Jul 19, 2008 by Tom Fragala

The other day, the Consumerist blog published a piece entitled 5 Steps To Take If Your Identity Is Stolen. Unfortunately, three of the steps are misleading and I felt should be addressed because they are common myths. I submitted a...

Jul 3, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed new California identity theft legislation on July 2nd. The compact legislation, SB 612, amends Section 786 of the Penal Code. It was backed by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and California District Attorneys Association. According to the Consumer...

Jun 24, 2008 by Tom Fragala

According to PC World, a human resources outsourcing firm called Colt Express Outsourcing, suffered a data breach when thieves stole a number of computers from their offices. Incredibly, Colt did not have an alarm security system (they installed one four...

Jun 13, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Alaska has a new identity theft law with protections including privacy of SSN's, credit freezes and data breach disclosures. Alaska’s HB 65 restricts the request, collection, sale, and sharing of Social Security numbers by both private parties and government agencies. The new...

Jun 7, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Your automobile is a target of thieves--that is obvious. Of course, thieves will steal the car itself or valuable items inside, like your cell phone or iPod. That is bad enough. But the information inside your car--not just the...

May 9, 2008 by Tom Fragala

From Javelin Strategy: We are not saying (online access and data breaches) are not significant factors,” said James Van Dyke, Javelin’s president and founder. “But the point is that it has really been overblown. I think it is to...

Apr 26, 2008 by Tom Fragala

ITRC points out that the Department of Defense will finally begin blocking out Social Security numbers on military ID's, dog tags, clothing and military records. About time don't you think? Just imagine the number of cards, documents, and more that...

Apr 24, 2008 by Tom Fragala

One common tip I have heard is that you should not sign the back of your credit cards or write something in its place asking that ID be checked. What should you do? Well, the right question to me is "Is...

Apr 13, 2008 by Tom Fragala

The misconception that fraud alerts by law require that you be contacted continues on unabated. In fact, a fraud alert is just words on your credit report. Can it be effective in some cases? Yes. Are fraud alerts some kind...

Apr 11, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Attrition.org, a non-profit hobby site, has shuttered its news service. They had become one of the "go to" information sources on security and data breaches. Here is an excerpt of their explanation for the shut down (although they leave the...

Apr 11, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Wrong question. If you are expecting to see a list here of several things to do if you are a victim of identity theft, look elsewhere (although you'll probably get bad advice). Why? Because asking what steps to take if...

Apr 9, 2008 by Tom Fragala

After being named a 2008 Hot Company in January, we just received another industry award. This time it is specifically for our patent-pending myTruston web-based technology and was given by the Information Security Products Guide. This program is called the...

Mar 27, 2008 by Tom Fragala

So the settlement is that TJX has to submit to a total of 10 security audits over the course of 20 years. Which is something they would do anyway most likely. Now, the FTC has limited powers under the FTC...

Mar 17, 2008 by Tom Fragala

The Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain said a breach of its computer system led to the theft of about 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers from its Hannaford and Sweetbay stores and other locations. Hannaford, based in Maine, said...

Mar 9, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Bob Sullivan, in his popular Red Tape Chronicles blog, has a story about someone who has his cell phone account taken over. This is what we call "existing" phone/utility account fraud (aka account takeover). Many folks think poo-poo this kind...

Mar 5, 2008 by Tom Fragala

We've heard from a few Canadian citizens over the last year that needed help with identity theft. We don't have a Canadian myTruston version, yet, although I wish we did. The laws are different of course, although many of the...

Mar 3, 2008 by Tom Fragala

There is a post on the Consumerist blog about a person that is having trouble getting a credit posted for losses from account fraud. Essentially, the person says the bank is messing around claiming paperwork on the fraud wasn't received, and the...

Feb 24, 2008 by Tom Fragala

In the midst of so much noise about identity theft, credit reports, freezes and alerts here is some important advice. Don't forget to protect your brokerage, investment and retirement accounts; financial accounts like those you open with a stockbroker or...

Feb 17, 2008 by Tom Fragala

There is a bill in Congress called the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2007. It passed in the Senate in November 2007 (S.2168) and referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary in December. According to the Bankers...

Feb 15, 2008 by Tom Fragala

The Federal Trade Commision released it's annual publication "Consumer Fraud and Identity Theft Complaint Data" for January-December 2007. The number one complaint category, 4 times more than number 2, is, of course, identity theft. The FTC today released the list of top consumer...

Feb 7, 2008 by Tom Fragala

The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) has released its 2007 Breach Report. They also maintain an ongoing 2008 Breach Report. In 2007, ITRC documented 448 paper and electronic breaches, potentially affecting more than 127 million records. This is a significant...

Feb 4, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Came across this article in Dallas Morning News. The article refers to our child privacy tips in talking about a story of Texas schools giving kid's personal identifying information, including SSN, to a contractor, OZ Systems. But it underscores a...

Jan 18, 2008 by Tom Fragala

As a former IT professional, something particularly disturbing about this is that the data breach occurred because of an apparent lost backup tape at the well-known data storage company, Iron Mountain. This just should not happen--this company specializes in data...

Jan 9, 2008 by Tom Fragala

This news that Maryland credit freeze law went into effect January 1 appears to be a bit underwhleming since all three credit reporting companies announced in 2007 they would offer nationwide credit freezes anyway. However, I think MD residents are...

Jan 7, 2008 by Tom Fragala

Unfortunately for this twit, he proved the opposite point of what he was trying to. Here is what happened. Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of popular British TV show Top Gear, wanted to prove a point. There was recently a massive data...

Jan 6, 2008 by Tom Fragala

It is simple and you know the answer: if you don't check your statement and fail to catch fraudulent charges or even errors the bank makes (within 60 days from mailing), they can tell you to jump in a lake....

Dec 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

There are a lot of lists about identity theft flying around this time of year. 12 tips of Christmas, top 10 ways to protect yourself from identity theft...that kind of thing. Well, to save you time and keep things simple...

Dec 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

The FTC recently released the results of their well-known survey and study on identity theft. For 2005. The big number everyone looks at, total victims, is 8.3 million. Of course, interpreting that number depends on how you define "identity theft"...

Nov 20, 2007 by Tom Fragala

This may sound hard to believe but a UK government agency lost data on every family in the UK with children under age 16. You read that right. 25 million people, 7 million familes. Two computer discs holding the personal...

Oct 24, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Court documents disclose that 96 million Visa and Mastercard accounts (credit and debit) were “impacted” by the TJX data breach. Jaw-dropping numbers, almost hard to believe. I wonder what they mean by “impacted.” Despite TJX having reported some 46 million...

Oct 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Experian is now going to offer credit freezes in all remaining US states where they do not offer it. Same pricing as Equifax and TransUnion, $10 a freeze, unless state law mandates otherwise. Tags: credit+freeze, credit+report...

Oct 9, 2007 by Tom Fragala

You may recall my saga from a few months ago, where some of my banks accounts fell victim to fraud because two of my banks sent me convenience checks (which I never requested) on a home equity line and credit...

Sep 29, 2007 by Tom Fragala

This week we released a new version of our award-winning myTruston service. The new features are FREE to current members for a 45–day free trial period. These four new prevention and privacy services are: Credit bureau fraud alerts Chexsystems fraud alerts Stop...

Sep 28, 2007 by Tom Fragala

This is not something you want to see when you visit your bank’s website: NetBank, an internet-only bank with $2.5 BILLION in assets was shut down today. That’s right, shut down without warning to the depositors and customers. Customers that...

Sep 26, 2007 by Tom Fragala

I have yet to see a much analysis of the reasons for the surprise announcement that TransUnion is going to offer all 50 states and DC the ability to freeze their credit file. Apparently, few saw the TransUnion move coming....

Sep 25, 2007 by Tom Fragala

It appears that Equifax is going to respond to TransUnion’s announcement to allow credit freezes nationwide. Same fee: $10 to freeze/unfreeze. No mention yet if victims will need to pay (I doubt it). And of course, they must comply with...

Sep 18, 2007 by Tom Fragala

TransUnion issued a press release that appears to be a bombshell. Still waiting to learn more about this. They are offering consumers in all 50 states and DC the ability to lock or freeze their credit file. Just how “frozen” it...

Sep 7, 2007 by Tom Fragala

At this time, according to state law, it's a felony if a person uses false identification leading to economic loss of $3,000 or more.On September 19, the law will change, making it a class three felony for anyone using false...

Sep 6, 2007 by Tom Fragala

This is the first case I am aware of where someone was arrested for committing ID theft through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, which are popular software and services for getting media including pirated movies, games and music. The story from PC...

Sep 3, 2007 by Tom Fragala

In Texas, you can freeze your credit file, even if you aren’t a victim now. Under a new law that took effect Saturday, consumers can freeze their credit report without having to have a police report. When you freeze your...

Sep 1, 2007 by Tom Fragala

We wrote another article and have made it available in the resources section of this web site. Click here to find it: Stolen Innocence: How to Prevent Child Identity Theft. It has some very useful tips on how to prevent and detect...

Aug 30, 2007 by Tom Fragala

INDYChannel.com reports On Sept. 1 [2007], Indiana will join the majority of states in allowing freezes. Attorney General Steve Carter touted the move as away to protect against fraud. As part of the new law, credit-reporting agencies will be required...

Aug 23, 2007 by Tom Fragala

I rarely post about data breaches anymore, because there are so many. But did you noticed that it seems more often than not, it’s retiree data that is stolen or lost? Here we have yet another laptop stolen, this time...

Aug 17, 2007 by Tom Fragala

From Dow Jones The Manhattan district attorney's office has charged five men in connection with an alleged identity-theft ring that attempted to steal millions of dollars from wealthy individuals. The targets included Anthony Pritzker, the president of consumer-credit information firm...

Aug 4, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Massachusetts finally got an ID theft prevention bill passed and signed into law. It includes credit freezes (for victims and non-victims), data breach notification requirements, and destruction of documents with sensitive data. Unforunately, none of the stories I saw state...

Jul 29, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

MSNBC had an interesting Dateline show recently about catching ID thieves. The show created a fake online electronics store and advertised it as one that accepts stolen credit cards to pay for merchandise. Apparently such stores exist, so no one became suspicious. When the news crew tracked the...

Jul 23, 2007 by Tom Fragala

The other day I came across a web site that sells “novelty” identity cards of many types. Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, diplomas, birth certificates, work permits, contractor certifications, you name it. I saw it mentioned in a forum where...

Jul 20, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Identity thieves are not often caught and prosecuted. This article from Concord Monitor Online explains the frustrating issues involved by recounting one woman’s attempt to get justice after she became an identity thief victim. "If somebody had a credit card...

Jul 16, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Here’s a great article about how the tech experts protect themselves from identity theft and other fraud. The article features tips from Frank Abagnale, a former identity thief turned FBI consultant on white collar crime. These days, Mr. Abagnale never uses a debit...

Jul 14, 2007 by Tom Fragala

I just found out I was victimized by ID theft again. The same MO: stolen “convenience” checks from my mailbox. This time it was convenience checks for my Citibank credit card, similar to the Wells Fargo convenience checks on my home...

Jul 14, 2007 by Tom Fragala

The TrendMicro Anti-Malware Blog points to a rather creepy new technology for hackers: Approximately two seconds is now all it takes to create phishing sites with the use of a new “plug and play” phishing kit that malicious users have fashioned...

Jul 9, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Beware of a new scam where a caller claims to be from the Social Security Administration and offers to increase your benefits. They are using scare tactics to pressure individuals to give out their bank account numbers. A Social Security spokesperson...

Jul 5, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Mississippi residents, as of July 1 2007, can avail themselves of a credit freeze. According to Insurance Journal: The law says a consumer whose personal information has been illegally used by others must file a police report, and then may...

Jul 5, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Here’s another scheme that I often see. Many of my clients have complained that debt elimination (also called debt settlement) companies take their money and run. The victims I’ve worked with were lucky that they only lost money, because according to...

Jul 2, 2007 by Tom Fragala

As reported in Brian Krebs’ Security Fix blog Residents of the District of Columbia now have the right to "freeze" their credit reports as a way to ward off identity thieves. As of July 1, people living in the nation's...

Jun 29, 2007 by Tom Fragala

We have blogged about this before and inside the industry this term is getting a lot of play. The mainstream media is starting to pick up on synthetic ID theft. Simply put, it means an imposter uses different parts of...

Jun 27, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I give a number of identity theft seminars every year and at each seminar, at least one of the attendees will admit to carrying around their Social Security card in their wallet or purse. In this day and age, and...

Jun 26, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

An article gives tips to teens to keep them safe from ID thieves. With the popularity of myspace and the fact that teens often post their personal information onto the Web, it’s easy for them to become victims. Teens need...

Jun 25, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Here’s a great blog by Susan Brenner that gives a lot of information about caller ID spoofing that can be used to steal identities or even worse. The spoofing is being used to commit identity theft and other types of fraud, though,...

Jun 22, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

According to a national poll by Bankrate, Inc, it’s true. Digital50.com reports that Bankrate also found that 45% of Americans don’t know their credit score. I can understand those not wanting to pay for a credit score, so it makes sense that...

Jun 19, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Here’s a great story about an ID theft victim that took matters into her own hands and single-handedly tracked the thief that stole her identity.She actually chased the thief down and waited for police to arrive. It’s a great story,...

Jun 16, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I often get the question, “should I enter my pin number at the store for extra security with my debit card?”. The answer is contrary to what you might think. Don't use your pin number! A question and answer column sums it...

Jun 15, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Below is a video from YouTube. See here for the back story on ZDNet....

Jun 12, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Do you know that the more in debt you are, the more likely you are to become an identity theft victim. That’s because when you’re in debt and sinking quickly, you are more likely to chase financing deals in a...

Jun 11, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

High foreclosure rates in neighborhoods can many times be blamed on identity thieves. Here's an article that talks about how they do it. The thief in this case is a mortgage broker that bought and sold homes, but usually under...

Jun 10, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

An article criticized the Presidential Identity Theft Task Force for some of the issues we’ve been blogging about for a while. The article sums up the report of the task force’s findings as this: The report focuses on four main...

Jun 7, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Innovis data solutions is relatively unknown to consumers – it is similar to the three credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Innovis supplies credit grantors with information on all of us "to assist in marketing, verification, authentication and fraud...

Jun 4, 2007 by Tom Fragala

We issued a press release this morning (read it here). Here is an explanation of what it is about. Last week, there was a shocking article about LifeLock by Ray Stern in the Phoenix New Times. Truston understands that their customers (and...

Jun 4, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

According to this article, scammers pose as if they are from the fraud department of Visa or MasterCard and rattle off a purchase on the credit card that the cardholder didn’t make. The caller promises to reimburse the cardholder once a 1-800 number is called...

Jun 1, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Craigslist.com is a website that lets sellers post ads for free. A man selling a truck on Craigslist was almost bilked by a variation of the Nigerian 419 scam that I’ve blogged about previously. A buyer named “Jimmy Davis” wanted to buy...

May 31, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Identity thieves target children because odds are they can use the child’s identity for years before anyone will notice. I originally posted the following blog in January of 2007, but am revisiting it in case you missed it the first...

May 31, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) sent donation solicitation letters to thousands of its former patients. Unfortunately, the patients’ social security number appeared through the window of the envelope. Yikes! Oddly enough, UPMC didn’t learn its lesson from a previous mishap. ...

May 28, 2007 by Tom Fragala

I got this article in FinanceTech via the Javelin blog. A study was done by Javelin which reports that the banking industry is leaving $8 billion on the table because over tens of millions of US consumers don’t bank online because...

May 26, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Identity thieves go after the identities of teens and young children because they know they have a lot of time before the victim will check his credit - often the thief can use the fraudulent ID for many years before...

May 25, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) announced that the provision he introduced to fight identity theft has been included in The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. Currently, the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Homeland Security are prevented from sharing...

May 24, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I constantly hear rumblings about the Jury Duty Scam and Tom Fragala has blogged about it previously on this site. Based on this article it sounds like the residents of Florida are getting hit hard by it. According to the investigators, scheme artists are calling victims...

May 22, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Neil Rubenking at PC Magazine wrote an article on ID theft titled Protect Your Identity that was published today. Truston was one of the featured solutions including ZoneAlarm’s Internet Security Suite....

May 22, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

An article in The New York Times describes a truly harmful practice. Companies that maintain data on individuals often create lists of the elderly, those with cancer, even those that gamble and then sell those lists to companies that have been known to commit fraud. An unethical...

May 21, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

A new scam is surfacing in Maine where the caller tries to convince the person on the other end of the phone that his social security card is no longer valid and that a new one needs to be reissued. It...

May 20, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

The newly merged Alcatel-Lucent just announced a similar mishap to IBM’s – which I recently blogged about. Employees of Alcatel-Lucent and retirees of Lucent have been notified that an unencrypted CD has been reported missing. The disc was prepared by Hewitt Associates,...

May 19, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Did you know? The California Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (CA Civil Code section 1788.18) prohibits a debt collector from continuing to collect on a debt of an alleged victim of identity theft if the victim has completed all the...

May 18, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

IBM is one of the leaders in encryption software and other data management technologies so it’s very surprising that their retirees’ data has been compromised. It happened when the human resources department’s back-up tapes were transported by a contractor from...

May 17, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I’ve blogged before that identity thieves often target businesses by creating fake checks in the business’ name and cashing them. Another twist that I’m hearing more and more about are scammers sending fake invoices in the hopes that a business will go...

May 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

We were a featured link on the main MSN.com home page (still are currently) as one of “Today’s Pick’s”. We got a 10X traffic boost and a surge in membership. The MSN.com homepage linked to a MSNBC page actually, which...

May 15, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Here’s another account from an identity thief on how he did it. James Jackson is in prison now, but he claims to have stolen the identities of such celebrities as Danny De Vito, Mel Gibson and a federal judge. I don’t...

May 10, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I found a really interesting article on ID theft that provides a whole different perspective – it’s from the ID thief’s point of view. The thief tells how he did it so that the public can learn from it (but only after...

May 6, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I read an excellent blog with a summary of scams that target individuals and businesses with less-than-stellar credit. Scammers know that as your credit score goes down, your options for credit do too. They feed upon the desperation of an individual with a...

May 6, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has lost a computer hard drive with information on 100,000 of its past and present employees. The files of TSA employees from January of 2002 to August of 2005 were on the hard drive with records of...

May 3, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Beware of ANY emails regarding the recent Virginia Tech shootings. There is a scam that comes by email claiming to have video from the shootings. If you open up the email to watch the video you actually download a computer...

May 1, 2007 by Tom Fragala

PC World, which wrote about Truston in their staff blog back in February, wrote about us again. Erik Larkin, who wrote the blog post, contributed a well done piece today in the Privacy Watch section of the PCWorld web site....

May 1, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

More and more hospitals and medical facilities are requiring photo identification when they check patients in. Medical identity theft is growing and the results are serious. Read more about what it is and its consequences in a past medical id theft...

Apr 30, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

A used-car dealership was burned by one of its own salesmen recently. Evidently the salesman conspired with a man that bought two trucks from the dealership using a stolen identity. Unfortunately the dealership figures that there may be more fraudulent sales by the...

Apr 28, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

In Kansas, identity thieves are phishing for information by acting as collection agencies and calling to collect on an unpaid debt. When the victims deny that the account is theirs, the caller tells them to file a police report and...

Apr 25, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

If you ate in a restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown, NY City, Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey or Connecticut recently, check your credit card statement carefully because you may be a victim of credit card fraud. Waiters in 40 restaurants skimmed information from...

Apr 24, 2007 by Tom Fragala

This is what happens when a web developer doesn’t know what they are doing… More than 250,000 people's names and addresses are now naked on the web after the maker of a popular sexual lubricant called Astroglide accidentally exposed lists...

Apr 23, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

In a past I’ve blogged about medical identity theft and how it can become a very serious form of fraud if the thief using your medical insurance is treated for a serious health condition. Not only can the you be turned down for life insurance...

Apr 21, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

With all the warnings to individuals about preventing identity theft, corporations don’t get much attention but they can be victims just as easily. Corporations make good targets when their financial information is easy to obtain and they don’t have a solid checks and...

Apr 19, 2007 by Tom Fragala

I just updated the blog post about the fraud I suffered this week. The story gets worse....

Apr 19, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

An article appeared on the NetWork World website about a CVS Pharmacy in Texas facing fines for throwing valuable customer information into a dumpster behind the store. It’s not the first time it’s happened and it certainly won’t be the...

Apr 17, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Not a good way start to the day. I got a call at work this morning (9am PDT) from someone claiming to be from the Wells Fargo fraud department. I have several accounts at Wells, including checking, mortgage and home equity...

Apr 16, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

There is an article on Myrtle Beach online that serves as a good reminder of just how much the victim goes through when an identity has been stolen. The thief opened credit card accounts in the victim’s name and paid the...

Apr 15, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

The elderly are targets of a scam in Iowa, according to KHQA 7 online, where the caller claims to represent Medicare and asks for personal information. Victims have been known to give social security and bank account numbers. Medicare doesn't...

Apr 13, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Just when I thought I had seen everything, it got worse! I've blogged on mystery shopping fraud and also nigerian money scams, but now to make matters worse, the two have combined to really take advantage of consumers! According to...

Apr 11, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I’m a big fan of Clark Howard – a consumer advocate with a nationally syndicated radio show. He’s alerting eBay buyers to a new scam that is successfully duping even experienced buyers. In his March newsletter, he explains how it’s done. Scammers build up...

Apr 10, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Some identity thieves will stand extremely close to you while you’re using your ATM card and watch as you put in your pin. If you become distracted after your PIN is entered and your ATM card is still in the...

Apr 9, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

According to an earlier blog of mine, vishing is an effective way to steal a victim’s identity. Scammers can create any phone number to show up on caller ID, which creates a lot of new opportunities for identity theft. For...

Apr 8, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Recently, there was a court case worth noting. A married couple won in a credit damage case versus Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Following a seven-day jury trial, a civil jury in Rancho Cucamonga has just ordered Wells Fargo Home Mortgage...

Apr 3, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Great news! Acccording to All Headline News Media Corp, Tallahassee, FL (AHN) - If you steal someone's identity in Florida, you may be charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. But if you steal...

Apr 2, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

You can only do so much to prevent identity theft. Take this article from US News and World Report, for example. A mundane trip manifest of reporters who traveled to Latin America with President Bush has turned colossally controversial because...

Apr 1, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

To add to Tom's blog about scammers stealing the identities of the deceased, here are some more tips from an id theft article in the Times-Picayune. Send copies of the death certificate to all three credit-reporting agencies, as well as...

Apr 1, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Michelle recently blogged about this topic. And the WSJ Sunday has a story on how scammers target families of the recently deceased with tips on how to avoid it. Families in mourning have yet another burden to contend with in the...

Mar 29, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Identity thieves will swoop in on the dead because for them, the best identity theft victim is one that no longer needs his credit and won't ever realize it's been stolen! Here's how one thief in Louisiana managed to grab...

Mar 28, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

As a financial counselor, I'm often asked the question, "When I find a mistake on my credit report, should I call the creditor directly or dispute it throught the credit bureau?". The answer is - it depends. If an account...

Mar 27, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I counseled a fraud victim recently that wrote a check to a stranger that came to the door selling Mary Kay. My client bought a small item from the woman and wrote a $5 check. It turned out that the...

Mar 25, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Here's a chilling reminder that you can never be too careful - but sometimes you don't have a choice. This utility worker had access to all kinds of information for each customer and she chose to help herself to at...

Mar 24, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

According to the article, Workers' Comp, Identity Theft Bills Pass Texas House, an identity theft bill in Texas will give law enforcement more time to investigate and prosecute identity theft. HB 887 would extend the statute of limitations from three...

Mar 24, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Electronic payment processors, including Visa and Mastercard, say that restaurants are the biggest source of credit card data breaches and security leaks. In a way, no surprise since there are millions of restaurants, many of which are small operations, that...

Mar 24, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Symantec released its Internet Security Threat Report and it includes information about how hackers are selling personal data including complete “identities” for under $20. Infoworld has the story. The data is sold on so-called "underground economy servers," used by criminal organizations...

Mar 23, 2007 by Tom Fragala

California, which prides itself on being the most privacy-friendly state, gave its residents an unpleasant surprise today. It was discovered that a California state web site had been exposing people’s Social Security numbers for years. The SSNs were including on...

Mar 21, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Here one that you should at least be aware of. It’s possible that sensitive documents you copy on a photocopy machine, at a public place or work, could be an ID theft risk. Many of these devices now have small...

Mar 18, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Here’s an interesting story that gives insight into identity theft by way of card skimming. According to the 680 news in Seattle, Three men from the G-T-A are facing 80 fraud charges related to a debit card skimming scam in...

Mar 18, 2007 by Tom Fragala

The WSJ has a story titled “Protect your own identity”. It is really about protecting your home network. The tips include: Pick a better password for your home router. Turn off the Service Set Identifier (SSID) so people can’t find...

Mar 17, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

In Colorado a couple of years ago, a man and woman posted a want ad in local newspapers for an assistant position. Applicants were interviewed and then asked to fill out an application, complete with social security number. It turns...

Mar 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Press release from the FBI today. They released the 2006 annual report from their Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.IC3.gov). I haven’t read the report yet but a a couple of things I noticed in the news release. There were 207,000 complaints...

Mar 16, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

ID theft victims would get access to financial help from the state Crime Victims Compensation Fund under a bill that passed the Legislature. In a nutshell, The fund, which is filled with levied fines and federal grants, helps crime victims...

Mar 15, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

A federal jury found a Swift plant employee guilty of identity theft for using a fraudulent social security number to get her job. The employee was the first to be tried for identity theft since the illegal immigrant raids on...

Mar 14, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Poor Guy. According to this reader's comment, a lottery winner's picture was recently posted in the Morning Sentinel newspaper in Maine along with his social security number and other personal information. How could that have happened? Two big thumbs down...

Mar 14, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

This article from the NY Times explains some of the reasons that ID Theft is as prevalent as it is. There are plenty of victims—credit card companies, banks, the consumer and the merchant—but there’s not much of an incentive to...

Mar 11, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Beware of email scams related to the daylight saving jump. Because daylight savings is taking place three weeks sooner than usual, it may cause some problems for computers and electronic devices. Daylight savings has received some media hype and that...

Mar 9, 2007 by Tom Fragala

An example of just how widespread SSN fraud is, how it is used and the connection to illegal immigrants. From an FBI press release March 6, 2007: United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced that JESUS JAIME MARTINEZ, age 22,...

Mar 9, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

When you hand over your paperwork to your tax-preparer, you may get more than you bargained for. Let's face it, you've just given all the information an identity thief needs to hijack your identity. How do you know that your documents...

Mar 8, 2007 by Tom Fragala

The Wall Street Journal has a story on skimming devices on point-of-sale systems like the fraud scheme which happened at the Stop & Shop stores recently. The article highlights the weaknesses at the POS at retail locations. Another reminder to...

Mar 8, 2007 by Tom Fragala

On March 7th, the FBI released their annual financial crimes report. This report blew me away for a number of reasons. It includes a number of fascinating data points with regards to FBI’s impact on identity theft. And, from what...

Mar 8, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

If you haven't yet, opt-out of receiving credit card offers by calling 1-888-5-optout (1-888-567-8688). Every piece of mail with your name and address gives an ID thief a chance to target you and when that piece of mail has a...

Mar 7, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Gartner issued a press release today about their forthcoming report that is going to take the noise up a notch in our space. It will delight a lot of people that want raw, scary statistics and stun others who hoped that consumer...

Mar 7, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Identity thieves are usually after their victim’s good credit, but that's not all they want. Medical insurance coverage has become as good as gold to identity thieves because with it, they can get free medical care for themselves. All it...

Mar 4, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colorado) gets it! He knows that a number of illegal aliens can use the same social security number to get a job and then never pay the income taxes which leaves the victim and eventually the country...

Mar 2, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Be leery if an ATM machine seems to swallow your card—you may be just about to become an identity theft victim. According to the Hillsboro Argus in Oregon, ATMs can be rigged by thieves to hold onto your ATM card...

Feb 28, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Ed Dickson of the FraudWar blog (#1 ID theft focused blog according to Technorati) wrote a positive reivew of the new MyTruston service recently. Here are a few of the things he said about us. Tom Fragala, CEO of MyTruston (Identity...

Feb 27, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Vishing refers to voice-phishing to get a victim’s vital information. It happens when an identity thief poses as a customer service rep from a bank or credit card company and calls to ask the victim to verify their information. The...

Feb 25, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Exciting news! We are finally launching the full public version of our MyTruston service! Here are the announcement details. 1. Availability February 26th 2. Prevention service free, Recovery service $19.99 / month, while you need it. 3. Find out more...

Feb 22, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

There’s a new scam that targets hotel customers while they are staying at the hotel. If you get a phone call from the front desk of the hotel you’re staying at, beware if the caller asks for your credit card...

Feb 21, 2007 by Tom Fragala

In response to the massive data breach at TJX, parent company of TJ Maxx, lawmakers in Massachusetts are mulling over a new law. It would force retailers to take responsibility for security breaches. WSJ has the story.> If it passes, and...

Feb 21, 2007 by Tom Fragala

CNet.com reports, The breach of credit and debit card data was initially thought to have lasted from May 2006 to January. However, TJX said Wednesday that it now believes those computer systems were first compromised in July 2005. TJX also...

Feb 20, 2007 by Tom Fragala

In a bold scam similar to what happens to ATM cash machines (see this video), data thieves setup skimming devices on the keypads in the checkout lanes at some Shop & Stop supermarket stores in New England. That really takes...

Feb 17, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

One of my biggest concerns of identity theft is a drained bank or investment account. Years ago when I researched identity theft, I had a lot of questions for my bank. I asked what my liability would be if someone...

Feb 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

On February 14, ID Analytics, Inc. released a new research study on identity theft and geography in the U.S. Here are some tidbits of interest from their press release. The ten states with the highest rates of identity fraud are:...

Feb 16, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

I found an excellent Public Service Announcement video made by the Broward Sheriff’s Dept in Broward, Florida. With real footage it shows an identity thief searching for his next victim and then stealing the victim’s information while she’s distracted. It...

Feb 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

The Canadian Privacy Law Blog (great blog, not just about Canada) pointed me to this eye opening story in a CIO Magazine blog. It is important because a bank seems to have tied the TJ Maxx security breach directly back...

Feb 14, 2007 by Tom Fragala

There’s a battle going on about ID theft stats. USA Today has a story about this here http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-02-07-ftc-idtheft_x.htm. Javelin Research says ID theft is dropping. US PIRG , Consumer Affairs, consumer advocate Chris Hoofnagle and others are ripping Javelin apart saying...

Feb 14, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Courier-Journal reports: Computer tapes containing personal information on about 196,000 members of health insurer WellPoint — including many Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield customers in Kentucky and Indiana — have been stolen from the office of a WellPoint vendor....

Feb 13, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

When I think of skimming, I think of waiters and credit cards. As the story goes, once the waiter is out of your sight, he runs the credit card through a reader that read your credit card account number. The...

Feb 13, 2007 by Tom Fragala

In the words of one of our myTruston members which signed up for our free prevention service: While I have never been a victim of Identity Theft, I was interested in learning more about the process of protecting myself. When...

Feb 8, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

The first sign of a scam is that you can make a lot of money for only a little work. Mystery shopping happens to be one of those nebulous terms that make people think they can get paid very well...

Feb 8, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Scams come in all shapes and sizes and are a lot of times used to commit identity theft. I want to alert the public to some very creative scams in hopes that individuals will recognize a scam for what it...

Feb 6, 2007 by Tom Fragala

I have written a lot about the VA in the past (see here). Everyone knows they had a laptop (and, don't forget, external hard drive) stolen last year with data on 26.5 million vets and active military. Well, they are...

Jan 31, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

If you get information of a class-action lawsuit against a baby product manufacturer, beware!! It may be a scam designed to find out your child’s vital information including social security number and name – all the information an identity thief...

Jan 24, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Don't get fooled into thinking that fraud alerts provide you much protection from identity theft. THEY DO NOT. Here's a question I got from someone today and my response. This might be a dumb question, but why not just post...

Jan 22, 2007 by Michelle Pastor

Knowing what I do about ID theft and that children are easy and often valuable targets for ID thieves, I was compelled to check my youngster's credit file...just to make sure his identity hasn't been hijacked. I know that unless...

Jan 20, 2007 by Tom Fragala

This could be the big kahuna, the largest most serious data breach of all time. TJX is the parent company of Marshalls and T.J. Maxx. This security breach happened eight months ago. The full extent of it is unknown or...

Jan 16, 2007 by Tom Fragala

What a security horrow show. Bank account numbers, SSN’s and driver’s licenses for 79,000 people were breached. It doesn’t get much worse than that. Reuters reports: MoneyGram International Inc. the second-largest U.S. money transfer company, on Friday said someone illegally...

Jan 14, 2007 by Tom Fragala

70,000 people are at risk after a data theft at the University of Idaho. The breach was announced nearly two months after it happened. Spokesman Review reports The names, addresses and Social Security numbers of about 70,000 students, faculty members...

Jan 14, 2007 by Tom Fragala

WOODTV.com reports A former federal official (in Grand Rapids, MI) is charged with using her access to password-protected accounts to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars and various identities....

Jan 13, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Consumer Affairs has a good article about the first two updated data security bills bubbling up from the new Democrat-controlled Congress. They are the Social Security Number Misuse Prevention Act and the Notification of Risk to Personal Data Act. I have...

Jan 12, 2007 by Tom Fragala

A gang of Dairy Queen identity thieves nabbed. Serves the thieves right—they used the stolen credit and debit card numbers to buy crap from thugfashion.com. This website says “Those who look for true bling bling, find it only here.” You can’t make this...

Jan 12, 2007 by Tom Fragala

According to Eric Bourassa of MassPIRG in this Somerville Journal story, Massachusettes is the only state in New England that has neither a credit freeze law or data breach law. 26 states have laws allowing individuals to freeze access to credit...

Jan 12, 2007 by Tom Fragala

I wrote a new article entitled 3 Tips to Stop Identity Thieves From Exploiting Your Mail. Your personal and business mail can be a gold mine to thieves looking to hijack their next victim's identity. This article has 3 tips...

Jan 8, 2007 by Tom Fragala

ELVIS PRESLEY, Born 08 Jan 1935, Died Aug 1977, SSN 409-52-2002. That isn't a typo. That's Elvis' real social security number and a clue as to how serious our privacy and identity theft problems still are in 2007. And, no,...

Jan 8, 2007 by Tom Fragala

A message from Truston. Do you want relief from the concerns about identity theft because of the laptop theft? But are you also worried when services like credit monitoring or so-called "fraud alerts" require your confidential personal information? Well, try...

Jan 6, 2007 by Tom Fragala

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue really screwed up. They transferred taxpayer SSN’s to a printer (idiotic, illegal move #1) and the printer dutifully put the SSN’s on 170,000 tax booklets (idiotic, illegal move #2). And no one along the way stopped to...

Jan 3, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Your Social Security number is important, confidential information. You should avoid giving it out unnecessarily. The trick is knowing, as best you can, when it is necessary. Keep your Social Security card and number in a safe place. Never carry your...

Jan 2, 2007 by Tom Fragala

On May 10, 2006 President Bush signed an Executive Order creating the nation's first ever Identity Theft Task Force. The goals of the Task Force are to develop a strategic plan to better prevent identity theft, coordinate prosecution, and ensure...

Jan 2, 2007 by Tom Fragala

BusinessWeek has a story on medical identity theft that is worth a read. Here’s one key point that is raised. While the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives victims of financial identity theft the right to see and try to correct...

Jan 1, 2007 by Tom Fragala

Eight states see credit freeze laws go into effect starting January 1, 2007: Hawaii. Victims of ID theft only, with a police, investigative report or complaint filed with a law enforcement agency. No fees permitted. Illinois. After January 1, 2007,...

Dec 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

AP via ESPN.com has the story. The theft happened via dumpster diving, which is what many so-called expert cite as the most common and dangerous threat. Sure, it’s a well-known, maybe even common, but it’s totally overrated. There’s so many...

Dec 19, 2006 by Michelle Pastor

I just looked over the paperwork for some identity theft benefit programs for a client and what I found was pretty unsettling. This particular client’s husband died 6 months ago and she was inundated by her bank and other companies...

Dec 17, 2006 by Michelle Pastor

According to the Denver Post, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has made identity theft the primary focus for the first time in its December 12th raid on illegal immigrants working at Swift meat-packing plants. ICE officials detained an undetermined number...

Dec 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Infoworld has an article on this. Note that the victim numbers aren’t precise and the Privacy Rights Clearninghouse doesn’t claim that they are meant to be. They are really all about tracking the scope of reported victims. That disclosure pushed the total...

Dec 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Boeing suffers yet another data breach via laptop theft. Files on the laptop contained employees' names, Social Security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers and birth dates, with some listing salary information. This time an employee left the laptop unattended (they...

Dec 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala

UCLA is notifying victims after suffering the largest known data breach ever at a university. This effects around 800,000 current students, former students, applicants, faculty and staff. The database was “fraudulently accessed” starting way back in October 2005! From the...

Dec 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Victims who believe they may have suffered losses as a result of identity theft caused by the data breach at ChoicePoint Inc. finally have a chance to recover some monetary pay back. Background from FTC.gov: In 2005, ChoicePoint, a company...

Dec 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

You didn't read this on the evening news but a bomb detonated recently and it has the potential to cause earthquakes nationwide. Parts of the California credit freeze law were struck down in appeals court. In other words, this means...

Nov 15, 2006 by Michelle Pastor

ChexSystems is another database that we, as consumers, can access. This is the database that banks and credit unions use when they decide whether or not to let you open a savings or checking account. ChexSystems generates a Consumer Report...

Nov 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala

FYI, the period for new golden tickets window is closed. Thanks to everyone to tried out the system. For those that sent feedback, your thank you gift will be sent in the next few weeks (they are on order, arriving...

Nov 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Most of us know about the free annual credit report we are entitled to by federal law. Did you know that the same law also entitles you to a free disclosure report from certain data brokers? A data broker, loosely...

Nov 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Today the Social Security Administration issued a press release warning about an email scam. While this is certainly serious, what struck me was their apparent cluelessness about phishing scams. The term phishing doesn't appear anywhere in the press release even...

Nov 8, 2006 by Michelle Pastor

Here in Colorado, we're not proud of it, but we have the worst foreclosure rate in the nation. It's been a real concern so officials investigated, and their findings surprised me! According to an October 29 article in the Denver...

Oct 31, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Experian just released a survey it did with Gallup. 26 percent reporteither personal data or financial data being stolen. These results are pretty remarkable. However, keep in mind this is a survey, and you surveys often tell a different story...

Oct 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Question: Does the Social Security Administration investigate identity theft related to your social security number? It seems logical they might, especially since ID theft related to your SSN is the most likely way to fall victim. Answer: No they do...

Oct 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Michele Pastor has written an article entitled 10 Great Ways to Deter Identity Thieves. It is located in the Resources / Articles section of this site. Check it out!...

Oct 17, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Updated below... A while back the FTC launched a new identity theft compaign called Deter, Detect Defend. It includes a slick new look and a updated materials for consumers and for people to educate others. I think it is an improvement...

Oct 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Don’t tell Lou Dobbs. With so many companies sending call centers offshore, what are the privacy risks? Pretty serious, if you read this article in the Times Online. Credit card data, along with passport and driving licence numbers, are being...

Sep 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

What protections do you have when fraud is committed using your ATM-Debit card? Will Visa and Mastercard's zero-liability always apply? (Since it is a debit card, it has Visa or Mastercard logo so it can be used like a credit...

Sep 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

There is a new type of company that you might not be aware of. These companies are called business contact marketplaces. It is very different from the data brokers than maintain and sell your personal information. They are unabashedly proud...

Sep 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Brian Krebs put together a super article on his Security Fix WaPo blog. It goes deeper and in more nuanced directions than most fluff identity theft pieces. These are a few points that jumped out at me. 1. Having your...

Sep 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

New York Gov. Pataki signed three measures into law today. These bills establish the Consumer Communication Records Privacy Act, place limits on the use and disclosure of Social Security account numbers, and further clarify and define what is considered a...

Sep 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Research into the source of data breaches has found that "…lost or stolen laptops were the main source of data breaches, rather than good old-fashioned hacking." Another data point that’s perhaps surprising: Datafrom New York state suggests that financial institutions have...

Sep 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Even though we all know what identity theft is, I thought I’d revisit some important definitions including federal law. Federal Trade Commission (ftc.gov):"Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information without your permission to commit fraud or other crimes."...

Sep 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This is a beaut. A prisoner runs an ID theft fraud ring on the inside. ConsumerAffairs.com has more. An inmate at the Hiawatha Correctional Facility in Kinross, Michigan, was sentenced to 5 to 20 years in the Chippewa County Circuit Court by 50th...

Sep 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I wrote a post about this in April of 2004 on my first identity theft blog, scamsafe.com. You can find the pretext article here....

Sep 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The AARP released a staudy called Into the Breach: Security Breaches and Identity Theft. I don’t have time to analyze it in depth right now. However, I did note that 29% of breaches (1/1/05 – 5/26/06) were the result of...

Sep 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This one, I can hardly believe. Did you know that if you call the Oregon state DMV, the person you speak with there might be a convicted felon? And they would have access to your sensitive personal information (DMV data...

Sep 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Your tax dollars are primed and ready. The credit reporting agencies now are drooling, waiting for the next huge data breach anywhere within the government. When it happens—ka-ching. FCW has more. Three firms received blanket purchase agreements Aug. 14 to...

Aug 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This bill SB1390 was introduced by Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R- Fresno). It passed the Senate in May and the Assembly in August and was signed into state law today. The entire bill is 33 words long! It requires the CA Department...

Aug 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Have you ever seen an employment verification from Choicepoint? This is something that a prospective employer might use to confirm that your employment background is as you told them. I have one in my hands right now. It has the...

Aug 20, 2006 by Tom Fragala

More on the Florida DOT laptop theft I reported a couple weeks ago. Through a blog posts by Brian at About.com, it appears that the laptop data was not encrypted after they originally said it was, and, two laptops have been stolen...

Aug 20, 2006 by Tom Fragala

NJ.com has a Q&A pulled from Liz Pulliam Weston about how one can easily steal the identities of family members and the strife it can cause. For example, in order to deal with ID theft in many cases you need...

Aug 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I rarely post about phishing attacks here because there are so many of them. I tried to post summaries of weekly phishing attacks back in 2004 on my scamsafe.com blog and it quickly became pointless—there are hundreds or thousands of...

Aug 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A laptop with sensitive data on 133,000 Florida residents was stolen. More from MiamiHerald.com. A laptop computer containing personal information of more than 133,000 Floridians was stolen in late July from a government SUV parked in front of a popular...

Aug 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

ConsumerAffairs.com has an article on 3 new ways scammers can steal your sensitive data. But it’s not really new overall, it’s just a different twist on pretexting. Someone calls you posing as someone else in order to get confidential data,...

Aug 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

According to a survey by NPower, a UK power company, almost one out of 10 people in the United Kingdon have been a victim of identity theft. Does that sound high? Well, did they ask if a person has been a victim at...

Aug 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Well, this is good news, but file under “it’s about time.” Starting this fall, Cal Poly San.Luis Obispo will no longer use SSNs as student ID numbers. Now, every other university that still uses the social security nunmber as an ID needs...

Aug 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala

That is what Albert Gidari wants you to believe. He is a partner in the privacy and security group at big law firm Perkins Coie. Here’s his quote from a recent article in the National Law Journal. …Albert Gidari, a...

Aug 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Update: Official VA press release on the incident. Another computer lost, another 38,000 identities in the wild. This after a lost laptop and hard drive potentially exposed 26.5 million. WSJ.com has the story. As many as 38,000 veterans may be at risk...

Aug 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Update: AOL apologizes (via CNet). You won’t believe this blunder. AOL purposely released data on 20 million web searches done by 650,000 users over a 3 month period. That’s right they meant to do it. They did replace user names...

Aug 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A couple of teenagers were arrested as the thieves that turned the country upside down. Apparently, they didn’t realize they had stolen a laptop with sensitive data on 26.5 million people. The Veterans Administration is breathing another sigh of relief....

Aug 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Nice to see a cross-agency law enforcement training program in identity theft. More from GovTech. Including local police, sheriff, and federal officers. During the four-hour course, officers were trained in the latest investigative techniques, including the areas of victim assistance, identity...

Aug 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Update: 10 days after I first reported it, Bob SUllivan of MSNBC is reporting this ATM-Debit data breach and fraud on his blog Red Tape. Bob does understand how seroius this fraud is. Finally, someone in the mainstream media gets...

Aug 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The numbers are uncertain. It’s either 100,000 or 1500 people at risk. WOAI has the story: A security breach at the Toyota plant in San Antonio was being investigated Thursday after a laptop computer containing personal information for more than a thousand...

Aug 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A disaster planning exercise went awry and a laptop was stolen. Now a quarter million people are at risk of identity theft. GuardMyCreditFile reports this story. A disaster planning exercise turned into a real disaster for one New York Hospital....

Aug 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Do you get paid via direct deposit through Paychex? If so, take a look at your paystub/statement. I looked at one recently and noticed that it shows the full checking account number! That puts the account holder at significant risk....

Aug 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Intersections, Inc. recently released results from a study of the top cities for “ijacking.” iJacking is their made up word to scare you into buying their credit monitoring services. I can only imagine how much this study cost them. I thought it would be...

Jul 31, 2006 by Tom Fragala

If you are a victim of identity theft you have a right to four (4) free credit reports in the year after you report the fraud. Federal law* gives you those rights. The consumer credit reporting agencies (CRA) don’t really...

Jul 31, 2006 by Tom Fragala

If you are an identity theft victim, there may be times—believe it or not—when your bank should be uncooperative when you are reporting fraud. They should never provide you with sensitive account information after you report fraud, until they have...

Jul 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile reports: HR 3997, the controversial bill that would stop the states from regulating data breaches, has been placed on hole in the House of Representatives. The bill, written primarily by the financial services industry, was scheduled to be voted...

Jul 25, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A victim of identity theft recently won a significant award against one CRA and continue her pursuit of justice. Her credit score and in tatters she went after the credit bureaus because after proving herself a victim of ID theft...

Jul 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

It’s tiring trying to keep up with the moving targets that are the new data breach and ID theft bills moving through Congress. But Beth Givens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Ed Mierzwinski at U.S. PIRG warn consumers that...

Jul 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Another lost computer, another massive data breach. wnbc.com has this story which effects over half a million New York residents that have received workers compensation benefits. The names, addresses and Social Security numbers of as many as 540,000 injured workers...

Jul 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Suze Orman, the TV personal finance guru has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal entitled Worried About Identity Theft?. As I read through it I found my self nodding my head in agreement. Then at the end I found myself...

Jul 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Robert Gellman says “everyone should receive free credit monitoring.” Good news: Truston is already going to offer a free service that we think is better. So there is no need to spill blood to get the credit bureaus to comply...

Jul 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Kentucky residents can place a credit freeze for up to seven years (why seven?). However, it’s only free for victims with a police report. $10 for everyone else. Courier-Journal has more. The following states have credit freeze laws today: California,...

Jul 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Jul 11, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Beth Given at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse sent out an alert today in their newsletter on the controversal set of data breach and identity theft bills in Congress (I’ve written about this several times including here). The primary pieces of proposed legislation...

Jul 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

(Scroll for updates…) I don’t mean disrobed. I mean that the residents of Hampton, VA are all naked and wide open to identity thieves and secret data brokers. Why? Apparently, your sensitive data is being made available to anyone by...

Jul 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The answer is YES. This article in FindLaw tells a gruesome tale of how state and local government is legally allowed to and has been posting your sensitive personal information online. This data could lead to identity theft and is...

Jul 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Recently, we announced free credit monitoring as part of our myTruston service. We did so because after the massive data breach at the VA, the government looked set to spend billions of dollars to provide credit monitoring and other credit services....

Jul 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This has got to be infuriating for them—the risk of ID theft is very real here. Washington Post is reporting that a Navy web site had posted the full names and social security numbers of 100,000 Navy and Marine aviators...

Jul 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

SANS NewsBites has this about the Veterans Administration and adds some opinion. This is happening after the huge data breach. A directive from Veterans Affairs (VA) secretary James Nicholson gives the VA CIO the authority to enforce security policies and...

Jul 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Illinois Governor has signed into law a bill that makes pretexting illegal. Pretexting in this context is pretending you are someone you are not in order steal sensitive personal information—identity theft. ...

Jul 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Governor of Colorado brought to light just how many people are illegally using SSN’s to obtain employment in that state. More from Rocky Mountain News. On the eve of the legislature's special session to address illegal immigration, Owens rattled...

Jul 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

ABC News reports that ADP suffered a breach of hundreds of thousands of investors personal data. Automatic Data Processing, one of the world's largest payroll service companies, confirmed to ABC News that it was swindled by a data thief looking for...

Jul 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala

In April 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics released identity theft victim data from 2004 (yes, 2004). The findings are from interviews conducted from July-December 2004 as part of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Here’s...

Jul 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Tom Zeller of the New York Times has fine article on Shiva Brent Sharma, a 3 time identity thief now serving time in prison. Also includes a 3 part video series. ...

Jul 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Computerworld has the story. One of the key issues around any attempt at a federal data security/breach law is whether it preempts and waters down any existing state laws. A bill introduced yesterday by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and Sen....

Jul 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This is from back on May 9. This excerpt is from Whitehouse.gov: Today, President Bush Signed An Executive Order Creating The Nation's First Ever "Identity Theft Task Force." This task force will marshal the resources of the Federal government to...

Jul 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The MercuryNews has an article about Best Buy’s proactive moves to improve security. Best Buy describes a sweeping computer security project that touches nearly every aspect of data-handling by hundreds of computer systems. And it described 50 ``control points`` where...

Jul 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From Dallas Morning News: Three laptops, one of them containing personal information on thousands of blood donors – including Social Security numbers and medical histories – were stolen from a locked closet in the Farmers Branch office of the American...

Jun 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile has this story. Federal authorities announced today that they have arrested five people in connection with the data breach at Lexis Nexis, a data wharehousing company, last year. The breach which exposed more than 300,000 people was the largest...

Jun 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is reporting that this time a computer tape was lost at an Indiana Veterans Affairs office—back in May. And it was revealed that back in 2005 the VA suffered a loss of veterans information, as well....

Jun 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

In a case that keeps growing, the Veterans Affairs worker whose laptop was stolen had written, documented approval to have the sensitive data on 26.5 million veterans. (Hope Yen at AP via WaPo)...

Jun 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Office of Management and Budget has requested $160.5 million for free credit monitoring for veterans. One of the first things I wondered was “where does the money come from?” Well, now I know. The Office of Management and Budget...

Jun 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Associated Press is reporting (via Forbes.com) The government has recovered the stolen laptop computer and hard drive containing sensitive data for up to 26.5 million veterans and military personnel, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said Thursday.Nicholson said law enforcement officials...

Jun 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

SF Chronicle has a story. San Francisco State University officials have put students and staff on alert because a thief broke into a faculty member's car earlier this month and stole a laptop with nearly 3,000 Social Security numbers and...

Jun 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Jim at GuardMyCreditFile has this report. …the USDA was forced to announce last week that as many as 26,000 employees and contractors may have had their data accessed and stolen by hackers. The announcement is just another in a string...

Jun 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Hope Yen of the AP continues her tireless reporting of this issue. The Department of Veterans Affairs is asking the President for emergency funds to cover the costs for dealing with this data breach, including credit monitoring. The VA asked...

Jun 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I blogged about the “new” Navy-specific data breach here. It is getting lost in all the noise about the VA situation. But here’s some updated news. Navy News has the story. Personal information on more than 30,000 Navy Sailors and...

Jun 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A press release is going to hit the wire services shortly. We are announcing our free credit monitoring service and premium ID theft recovery services. They’ll be available in the 3rd quarter 2006. We’ve been working on this for well...

Jun 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Update 6/26 6:20pm PT: In respone to criticism from veterans groups, the VA just announced that “An individual who chooses to sign up for the credit monitoring service, including the insurance, will not be asked or required to relinquish any...

Jun 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

InformationWeek has an article about how the data breach notification laws often result in extended times for disclosure. The AIG breach was made public over three months after the theft of the equipment. Companies can use considerable discretion in how fast,...

Jun 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Lost in the fuss over the VA and Navy data breaches was the disclosure last week that AIG had a computer server stolen that contained sensitive data on 970,000 customers. It’s stunning that a breach of 1 million identities is small...

Jun 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

AP Story in the Buffalo News. This data included SSN’s so it is serious stuff. The Navy News Service also has an article. The Navy has begun a criminal investigation after Social Security numbers and other personal data for 28,000...

Jun 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Updated 6/27/06 Are you a veteran or member of the U.S. military, including the reserve and National Guard? Wondering what to do after the computer theft/data breach at the Department of Veterans Affairs (aka VA or Veterans Administration)? Or are...

Jun 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

By now we’ve all heard about the data breach at the VA. And the VA announced on Wednesday they would provide free credit monitoring (and possibly credit reports) for at least a year for anyone effected. So, can someone explain...

Jun 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Dow Jones reports via CNN.com After losing personal information for 930,000 people in the theft of a computer server, American International Group Inc. (AIG) Thursday said it plans to offer identity-restoration services to any who are "fearful" that their identity...

Jun 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I was tooling around the USA today web site, and I thought I’d compile some of the stories they’ve posted on the VA data theft story. Since they are the largest US newspaper (2.5 million subs). Stories can be found...

Jun 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Hope Yen of the AP has this story in the Seattle PI. The government agency charged with fighting identity theft said Thursday it had lost two government laptops containing sensitive personal data, the latest in a series of breaches encompassing...

Jun 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Martin McKeay's Computerworld Blog says so. According to GovExec.com, the reason the Veterans Administration didn't have a centralized IT security authority was because the VA's general council argued that the CIO's responsibility was to 'ensure' FISMA compliance not 'enforce'. Martin...

Jun 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Grant Gross of ComputerWorld has this story. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA's) offer of free credit monitoring to the 26.5 million military veterans affected by a recent data theft is not enough to fix the problem, the chairman...

Jun 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Army Times reports Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., a member of Buyer’s committee, introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the VA to provide free credit monitoring and credit reporting for any veterans whose personal information was on the stolen computer....

Jun 18, 2006 by Tom Fragala

IdentityGuard is offering U.S. veterans six months of free fraud protection (in light of the recent VA data breach we reported here and here). They say they are providing this offer “because we value and appreciate your service to our country.” But, wait,...

Jun 17, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Netcraft reports on this insidious scam (my emphasis added). A security flaw in the PayPal web site is being actively exploited by fraudsters to steal credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to PayPal users. The issue was reported...

Jun 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Lou Dobbs did a story on Audra Schmierer, who had her Social Security benefits from 14 years of work wiped out, owes $1 million in back taxes, and was detained by customs. All because her social security number was sold...

Jun 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Computerworld has a rather strange article. It says, Banks can enhance their reputation for security by acting as custodians for personal identity credentials designed to make identity theft difficult. This idea was advanced by Graham Alston, a partner in Unisys...

May 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile reports on movement in three states, Oklahoma, New York and Illinois, to increase consumer protection. Legislators in three states are attempting to strengthen consumer privacy laws and enhance consumer rights in order to prevent identity theft. The moves come...

May 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Robert Brennan of the SoCalCreditDamage.com Blog has a press release on his blog about a class action case he is representing. Consumers shopping at DRIVE TIME (formerly known as UGLY DUCKING) for used cars usually have filled out credit applications...

May 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog gets “medieval” on the Veterans Administration for the horrifying data breach that was reported here May 22 (26 million veterans had their sensitive data exposed). Here’s some highlights. …VA goes on to pass the buck...

May 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From U.S. Newswire, a press release announcing a crack down on a huge number of scams in the U.S. The fraudulent schemes investigated accounted for nearly 3 million victims through criminals operating in the US, Canada, Cost Rica and Holland....

May 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile has this story… About 1 million people contained in a Red Cross blood donor database have been exposed to identity theft by a dishonest employee of the organization. The suspect in the case, Lonetta S. Medcalf worked as a...

May 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Firstgov.gov has got a web page for more information about the huge security breach at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee, a data analyst, took home electronic data from...

May 22, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Yahoo! News reports: Personal electronic data on 26.5 million US military veterans and some spouses was stolen from the home of a government employee, the USDepartment of Veterans Affairs announced.Veterans affairs officials said there was no evidence the information had...

May 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile reports that attendees at a 2001 Defense Department fraud conference may have been exposed to identity theft—not in 2001, but this year. In August of 2001, the DOD held a conference on healthcare fraud in San Diego, CA. More...

May 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From the Whitehouse.gov Fact Sheet: May 10, 2006 – Today, President Bush Signed An Executive Order Creating The Nation's First Ever "Identity Theft Task Force." This task force will marshal the resources of the Federal government to crack down on...

May 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

It’s pretty well known that Mastercard and Visa provide voluntary zero-liability for fraud victims. I’m often asked about American Express. Here’s the scoop with an American Express card, from the American Express website: Use the American Express® Card online or...

May 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Liz Pullam Weston has an article in the Los Angeles Times about credit freezes. Credit freezes can be a terrific tool for identity theft victims and those at high risk, such as people whose personal information has been exposed to...

May 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This article on News-Record.com tells a grave tale. A man had over $26,000 drained from a Merrill Lynch financial account (which had check writing capabilities). The criminals wrote fraudulent, counterfeit checks against this account for over a year. Some of...

May 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

ABC News reports has an article (via About.com) about medical ID theft—someone using your identity to get health care. Basically they get the health care and the victim gets the bill, not a new scam, by any means. But it...

May 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Guardian (via Security Wonk) does an investigative report where they are able to see someone's sensitive personal information using just their British Airways frequent flyer number....

May 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Dayton Daily News has an article in which several ID theft victims are interviewed. Here’s a summary of one victim’s situation While visiting an old girlfriend in California in 2003, J. Edgar Bennett of Dayton had his passport, driver's license...

Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The New Bern Sun Journal has an article on public forums in North Carolina to educate citizens on common scams and ID theft. There will be 24 of the Scam Jams held in NC through November. The Scam Jams will...

Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala

WXOW TV-19 reports Wisconsin Governor is proposing a new ID theft law which would include an ID theft passport, which sounds similar to what Iowa is proposing. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, in light of...

Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala

CNET News.com has this story: Lawmakers in Iowa are proposing a special "passport" meant to protect victims of identity theft against false criminal action and credit charges. The "Identity Theft Passport" will be a card or certificate that victims of...

Apr 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Click2Houston.com has an article on fraud and ID theft in Houston: “HPD records show in the last year, only 2 percent of forgery and counterfeiting cases and only 12 percent of fraud cases were actually solved.”...

Apr 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Using a SSN fraudulently to get employment is nothing new. But there’s a lot of new buzz surrounding the issue of “undocumented” workers stealing or using stolen social security numbers. This is not a small matter. If someone uses a...

Apr 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Bruce Schneier has an article in Wired News about the new identity theft bills floating around Congress. Probably the biggest flaw with these potential federal laws are they are written to wipe out stronger state laws that already exist. I wrote about it previously...

Apr 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Colorado has a new credit freeze law going into effect July 1st. Here’s the details from the Colorado Attorney General: Beginning on July 1, 2006, consumers will have the option of requesting any consumer reporting agency to place a security...

Apr 19, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Arizona has probably the worse ID theft problem in the country. And many people I talk to attribute the problem, at least partly, to weak laws and lax enforcement. A January 2006 report by the FTC, entitled “Consumer Fraud and...

Apr 19, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Santa Cruz Sentinel has a story of a substitute mail carrier that is a suspect in stealing mail. The post service is one of my biggest concerns and people don’t seem to talk a lot about it. The mail...

Apr 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I recently got a question from a reader. Someone told him that everyone should get a credit freeze. I emailed a response and I thought you might want to see my thoughts on this matter (slightly edited for this blog). There...

Apr 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala

KUTV has this story The state attorney general’s Office introduced a new identity theft reporting system Monday that it says will cut down on the amount of time victims spend proving their identity has been stolen.Victims of identity theft can...

Apr 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The AP reports The Minnesota Senate united Monday to approve safeguards against identity theft for consumers and provide help for victims who are trying to clean up their records. The bill from Sen. Dan Sparks, would allow Minnesotans to put...

Apr 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

In the Windows Messenger software I run, when I click to send a message I always see this first “Never give out your password or credit card number in an instant message conversation.”. Good advice. In most cases, instant messaging...

Apr 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

XTVWorld has a story about how identity theft caused a Pentagon employee to lose his job, career and potentially his home, car and life savings. If you think ID theft is over-hyped or not a big deal, read on… Thaddeus...

Apr 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This article from Computerworld digs into the security threat from insiders, using the example of a recent data breach. A recent case in which an employee at Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. wrongfully accessed information on foreclosure properties she was interested...

Apr 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From ComputerWeekly… Another serious security hole has been unearthed in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, which could lead to users being tricked into thinking fake phishing sites are genuine.The error in the browser can be exploited to fake the address bar...

Apr 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From a press release on the USSS’ web site: UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE’S OPERATION ROLLING STONE NETS MULTIPLE ARRESTSOngoing Undercover Operation Targets Cyber Fraudsters March 27, 2006 Washington, D.C. – The United States Secret Service today made public an ongoing...

Apr 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardmyCreditFile reports The Los Angeles County Office of the Department of Public Social Services announced today that it has sent letters to 94,000 county residents that they may have been exposed to identity theft. In January, documents containing their names,...

Mar 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Yahoo has this story about a baby in Massachusetts. WVCB NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that the baby's mother discovered the theft when she went to open a savings account in her son's name and learned someone had used her child's...

Mar 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The NY Times is reporting today: The Secret Service yesterday announced seven arrests in five states and the District of Columbia as part of a continuing crackdown on online forums where credit card data and other stolen consumer information is...

Mar 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Ed Mierzwinski’s US PIRG blog says The New York Times had a story by Damon Darlin Saturday on the issues around the need for strong security freeze laws and the threat to strong state privacy protections posed by Congressional meddling....

Mar 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile gets the inside scoop on the news about Utah’s new credit freeze law (which also has a data breach notification provision). Some good and some bad. For example, Jim tells us that Utah’s credit freeze law allows any citizen of...

Mar 20, 2006 by Tom Fragala

There’s been a lot of noise about HR 3997, also called the Financial Data Protection Act. I'm a few days behind on this. CALPIRG blog (ED MIERZWINSKI) writes about this bill here first and then about a later draft here the same day, calling it...

Mar 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

NBC-TV Channel 4 in Los Angeles is reporting that a government agency data breach could effect as many as two million people. In an exclusive investigation, Channel 4's Ana Garcia uncovered a security breach of confidential records at a government...

Mar 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

CNET has this breaking story on the huge debit card fraud case. It appears law enforcement cracked the case. That might explain why so little information was forthcoming on this—they appear to have been hot on the trail of the criminals....

Mar 11, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Experian Consumer Direct, (aka ConsumerInfo.com) which is a division of one of the three main credit bureaus, announced a new low priced product called Triple AlertSM, which I believe is the lowest priced three-bureau credit monitoring product at a cost...

Mar 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Jim Malmberg at GuardMyCreditFile wrote another fantastic article today, touching on an important, but little known topic. There's parallel system for checking accounts similar to credit files. And if you've ever been a victim of check fraud, you'll understand that...

Mar 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Computerworld is following this big story. The reason it's a big deal isn't just the scope of the fraud which is massive. It's because the fraudsters managed to compromise debit card PIN-based transactions on a huge scale, which seems to...

Mar 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Computerworld is reporting about a nasty data breach. Georgetown University in Washington has called in the U.S. Secret Service to investigate a server breach that may have exposed confidential information including the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers...

Mar 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Jim at GuardMyCreditFile posts another good article, this time talking about the risks of the e-fax or virtual fax services. This is one of those things that seem obvious when you read it, but no one is really talking about. Both...

Mar 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From Wired News: Seventeen million customers of the online payment service iBill have had their personal information released onto the internet, where it's been bought and sold in a black market made up of fraud artists and spammers, security experts...

Mar 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The New York Times is reporting that Citibank, BofA, Wells Fargo and many other banks have seen customers become victims of this data breach of debit card infomation. Some are blaming Officemax, but Officemax is denying it. This story is...

Mar 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From the AP Wire... PIERRE, S.D. - A state law to help protect victims of identity theft in South Dakota will be enacted July 1.Gov. Mike Rounds has signed the legislation, which will let identity theft victims block access to...

Mar 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A theft of two laptop computers has put a "significant number" of Verizon Communications' employees at risk of having their identities stolen, the company said Wednesday. Undisclosed number of Verizon employees at risk of identity theft | News.blog | CNET...

Mar 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Ars Technica is reporting that Google is going to release a free anti-phishing tool. If it works, and is given the resources needed to stay up to date, this could be a boon for consumers. Those that use the Firefox...

Mar 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From the Washington Post, a brief and important follow up story: Some consumer advocates who specialize in privacy issues have written to complain about a blog item last week on a new identity theft study done by the Better Business...

Mar 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

ZDNet's ZDNet Research reports 7.92 mln phishing e-mails sent daily. In the second half of 2005, phishing attempts made up one in every 119 processed e-mail messages, according to Symantec. This translates into an average 7.92 mln phishing attempts per...

Mar 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The MMFHOH blog is reporting on a story that ID theft was up 16% last year. Tags: idtheft, identitytheft...

Mar 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Data on 93,000 people may be at risk. From a school bulletin: Metro State President Stephen Jordan announced today at an open meeting for the College community and the Denver media that a laptop computer belonging to Metro State was...

Mar 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

SANS Newsbites is reporting that an Ohio resident is suing the Ohio secretary of state J. Kenneth Blackwell after discovering that his and other residents' SSNs have been publicly available for years on state web sites. The numbers are included in...

Mar 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

There is a lot of buzz on blogs worldwide about this. Apparently Citibank’s ATM network was compromised in some countries so Citibank allegedly shut down access to ATM’s in those countries. This story is developing… One of the largest banking...

Mar 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A follow up to my post yesterday about the OH Secretary of State web site… The revelation that hundreds, if not thousands of Ohioans' Social Security numbers are available on the secretary of state's Web site triggered politically charged debate Thursday...

Mar 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The San Bernardino County District Attorney launches an ID Theft Unit. Tags: idtheft, identitytheft, law...

Mar 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From SANS NewsBites: Bank of Bermuda has been notified by Visa that a recent security breach compromised information about 800 Bank of Bermuda customers' bank cards. The breach occurred at an ATM transaction processor. The bank is closing the accounts,...

Mar 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From CNet, another story to brighten your day. Trojan horse software is nothing new and generally have been of the password stealing variety. It appears that newer style Trojans have gotten smarter and will be clever enough to foil banks’...

Mar 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I noticed on SANS NewsBites this story about the FBI expanding its investigation of a debit card fraud case. The full story is on CNet News.com and apparently involves retailers such as Wal-Mart and Officemax and the source is apparently a...

Mar 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

An executive from IDAnalytics wrote an article about data breaches on CNet. It's worth a read to get the perspective of someone from the anti-fraud technology industry. It was written by Thomas Oscherwitz. vice president of government affairs and chief...

Mar 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

NPR / Justice Talking have created a big radio program called “Identity Theft” and has a nice web site just for this program located here. The show should be broadcast on your local NPR station. But I am listening to...

Mar 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile writes about another phishing scam that claims to be from the Social Security Administration. I don’t write about every phishing scam, since there are dozens of new ones every week (if not more). I actually tried to do that...

Mar 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Over at the blog The Make Money Fast Hall of Humiliation, the author wrote about another threat for PC users called key logging. A key logger is a piece of software—a Trojan horse—that copies keystrokes you type in with the...

Feb 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A Border’s employee anonymously writes in their blog about how the store they work at ignores (encourages?) credit card fraud. In the post, colorfully entitled “Scumbag,” the author refers to it as identity theft, however, that term probably doesn’t apply if...

Feb 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Alabama Attorney General has published a guide on preventing and recovering from ID theft. It appears at first glance to be fairly comprehensive, as these things go. I don’t believe that a static web page or sheet is helpful...

Feb 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

David Fraser is reporting on his blog a follow up to the recent news about a data breach by Providence Home Services in Oregon. Nice to see someone following up, David. The company is reported by Computerworld to have carried...

Feb 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Colorado, way behind the rest of the country, may see real ID theft legislation if a new bill gets passed. Fraud, forgery and identity theft share close ties with a rising methamphetamine problem in Weld County -- a tie not...

Feb 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

AOL is apparently the first ISP to use the VA’s new anti-phishing law. To help battle the rising tide of email phishing scams, devious email hoaxes, and complex identity theft on the Internet, AOL has filed three civil lawsuits against...

Feb 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This is from Daily Review Online and written by California’s senior US Senator. EVERY FOUR seconds in America, another person falls victim to identity theft. It can happen in any number of ways. A wallet is stolen; a credit card...

Feb 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

An external auditor lost a CD with information on thousands of current and former McAfee employees, putting them at risk of identity fraud.The disc was lost on Dec. 15 by Deloitte & Touche USA, McAfee spokeswoman Siobhan MacDermott said Thursday....

Feb 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Over half of all data breaches last year (and so far in 2006) are at educational institutions, according to Linda Foley of the ITRC. Universities are notorious for weak security. About 6,000 employees at the University of Northern Iowa were...

Feb 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This case involved the theft of a billion—yes a billion—records from Acxiom, the data services company. Scott Levine, formerly principal owner of e-mail marketing company Snipermail Inc., was sentenced yesterday to eight years in prison on charges related to the...

Feb 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Payments News is reporting that CardSystems, responsible for a huge data breach, is settling with the FTC. The Federal Trade Commission has announced that CardSystems Solutions, Inc. and its successor, Solidus Networks, Inc., doing business as Pay By Touch Solutions,...

Feb 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Cox Communications (the cable TV/internet provider) is offering cusomers a new, free software to help prevent them from getting hit by phishing scams. It’s part of their overall free software security site—looks like you have to download all of them...

Feb 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Chris Hoofnagle, Director of Electronic Privacy Information Center (West coast), attended the ID Theft Summit too, and he blogged about it here....

Feb 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The California Office of Privacy Protection and Department of Consumer Affairs have released several free podcasts with information about ID theft, phishing and other consumer fraud. They are currently located on the home page of the OPP: Office of Privacy...

Feb 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Computerworld appears to have exposed this as nothing but an urban legend. Warning: Hotel card keys may contain personally identifiable data on the magnetic stripe. Is it fact—or fiction? As part of a Computerworld investigation into the allegations, reporters and...

Feb 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Register is reporting that Ernst & Young failed to disclose a data breach… Ernst and Young should go ahead and pony up for its own suite of transparency services. The accounting firm failed to disclose a high profile loss...

Feb 25, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The State of Montana HOUSE BILL NO. 732, goes into effect March 1, 2006. The bill package includes a number of protections for consumers. It requires most businesses in Montana to take precautions when disposing of customer records. Also, businesses must alert...

Feb 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Right now Mari Frank is talking. She’s quite a good speaker. Interesting fact: 10 billion pre approved credit card offers were sent last year! She is a victim herself. She has a fascinating story about a victim (Raymond Lorenzo) she’s...

Feb 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I am writing this from the ID Theft Summit in Los Angeles. It’s around 945am and Governor Schwarzenegger just finished speaking. He managed to get everyone laughing when he joked that so far he hasn’t been hit by ID theft...

Feb 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Officials Warn Of Jury Duty Identity Theft Scam. Callers Ask For Personal Information.North Texas police are warning about a telephone scheme that has trapped victims in nine states. Officials said the caller or callers make the victims think they were...

Feb 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This story jumped out at me because an in-home caregiver stole the identity if her client. I can’t post every ID theft story I see, because there isn’t enough time in the day. However, I want to emphasize that you...

Feb 20, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Maine Sentinel newspaper has a story about a sheriff that got hit by a phishing scam… Waldo County Sheriff Scott Story has more sympathy for victims of identity theft these days since he was scammed or, more accurately, "phished.""I...

Feb 20, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile reports that data on 27,000 employees and customers of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida was stolen. The data included Social Security Numbers so there is a significant threat of ID theft. Tags: data+breach, idtheft, identitytheft...

Feb 19, 2006 by Tom Fragala

FDIC Consumer News is an online newsletter and the latest issue features a guide to preparing financially for fires, floods and other disasters. Other topics include online ID theft and fraud prevention and a coming increase in FDIC insurance for...

Feb 18, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Nineteen-year-old Melissa Goza couldn't figure out why her credit card applications were rejected time and time again. It only became clear when she was turned down for a new job: she's a victim of identity theft. More from KXTV: Stolen...

Feb 18, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Microsoft filed 117 lawsuits this week against unnamed defendants accusing them of identity theft, also known as phishing. Phishing is defined by the Wikipedia as the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire through deception sensitive personal information such as...

Feb 18, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Long Island Press reports that the people had their sensitive person data posted on a government web site. When a corporation leaks sensitive data, the result can be action by the Federal Trade Commission or state authorities. What happens when...

Feb 17, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Mike Wendland, a consumer technology columnist for the Detroit Free Press writes about his ID theft experience on his blog here. Tags: identity+theft, idtheft...

Feb 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A data security breach that has spurred at least two large banks to cancel thousands of customer debit cards appears to be connected to an older ongoing investigation in Sacramento, the FBI said Friday.Scores of Bank of America and Washington...

Feb 15, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company recently released a poll on identity theft… A new identify theft survey, one of the first to examine how the crime affects both African Americans and Hispanics, confirms that no minority group in the U.S. is...

Feb 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala

An Entire Industry of Companies That Sell Phone Records Has Developed, Testimony NotesThe Federal Trade Commission today told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Product Safety, and Insurance that the agency is currently investigating...

Feb 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala

In recognition of 2006 National Consumer Protection Week, Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe recently provided new statistics from the Federal Trade Commission on fraud-and-identity-theft trends in Arkansas and the nation.Arkansans reported a record number of 1,617 identity theft cases in...

Feb 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Identity Theft Prevention Blog posted this: Finally, a Nigerian scammer gets prison time....

Feb 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala

If you write a blog, you may be a target of identity theft someday. I am going to write a more detailed post about this in the future. However, for now, please think twice before you post personal information on...

Feb 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala

From Ars Technica… If Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has his way, US websites will no longer be able to store personal data about web surfers unless that information has a legitimate business purpose. Markey's bill, known as the "Eliminate Warehousing...

Feb 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Payments News blog referenced a study by ID Analytics about data breaches and ID theft…. ID Analytics has announced findings from its analysis of publicly-available information on 70 data breaches that occurred in 2005 showing that few of the...

Feb 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

You’ll notice in the article that identity theft didn’t even crack the top 10. Gasoline prices was the #1 complaint which seems totally upside down to me. The article explains that the Illinois AG only received 325 complaints about ID...

Feb 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

GuardMyCreditFile posted this story. It’s interesting to see a state make this effort. I wonder how many people will be staffing the call center—a serivce like this won’t do much good if the line is always busy. But “A” for...

Feb 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

A website called ID-Theft-Recovery.com appears to have taken their logo from the ID Theft Resource Center (for whom I am a volunteer victim advocate). The ITRC has been around since 1998 and is the leading source of victim advocacy and ID...

Feb 7, 2006 by Tom Fragala

As often happens, fraudsters are always quick to pick up on unfortunate events and take advantage of people. The other day I posted about the newspaper credit card debacle. Now the Massachusetts Attorney General has issed a fraud alert about a...

Feb 6, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Jim Malmberg posts quite a disturbing story of how health insurance customer’s sensitive data is put at risk in a most unusual way. The disturbing part is that there is an easy solution and, if the story is true, sheer...

Feb 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Russian hackers broke into a Rhode Island government Web site and allegedly stole credit card data from individuals who have done business online with state agencies.The story was first reported by The Providence Journal this morning and comes two days...

Feb 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Attorney General Jay Nixon wants Missouri consumers not to be fooled by con artists offering government grant money over the phone. Missourians are calling Nixon's Consumer Protection Hotline every day to report the identity theft scam.Consumers are called and told...

Feb 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala

After my last post, I realized that my parents, who live in the Boston area, are Globe subscribers. On a whim, I decided to go to that web page and see if they were effected. Sure enough, they were! I...

Feb 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Here’s the original article announcing the massive mistake… Credit and bank card numbers of as many as 240,000 subscribers of The Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram & Gazette were inadvertently distributed with bundles of T&G newspapers on Sunday, officials of...

Feb 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This is a pretty long article from a newspaper in Colorado that talks about local banks’ dealings with fraud. Although the title of the article uses the term “identity theft,” in my experience many bank fraud investigators don’t consider bank...

Feb 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Washington State Senate appears to have dropped the ball. OLYMPIA - Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna says he's surprised and disappointed that a Senate Committee has killed the top priority bill sought by a citizens' summit on identity...

Feb 3, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Here’s a stunning stat from this article: one of every 10 Certified Nurse’s Aides had outstanding criminal warrants! Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox today announced that legislation designed to protect Michigan's seniors and vulnerable adults in residential care facilities has...

Feb 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This is a follow up to my previous post about the just released study by BBB and Javelin. This is from a press release by the BBB. They say that it’s ‘surprising’ that in half the cases the perpetrator knows...

Feb 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Harrison Ford is ticked off again. But not because the bad guys have hijacked Air Force One or kidnapped his wife from a Paris hotel room; this time they've swiped his identity to break into the bank where he works...

Feb 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

George Mason University recently discovered (in January) unauthorized access to a database that has exposed 32,000 people to potential identity theft, although no such activity has yet been traced to the security breach. More from Network World....

Feb 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) release a video presentation to help consumers protect themselves from identity theft and fraud, focusing on electronic and Internet-based scams. The video provides steps for consumers to secure their computer and protect themselves...

Feb 1, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Officials at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs say a hacker has compromised personalinformation of hundreds of employees.They say someone who hacked into a computer Friday accessed names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses for about 2,500 current...

Jan 31, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Jim Malmberg does a fine job of picking apart two new state bills in Utah and Virginia. A must read. In the new year, a variety of state legislatures continue to debate credit freeze law. Among these are two states...

Jan 31, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The Wall Street Journal did a brief, but good article on ID theft on January 30. The basic premise is that the number of victims is lower but the amount of losses per victim it going up. My take on...

Jan 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Two recent computer security breaches at the University of Delaware have resulted in the possible exposure of names and Social Security Numbers that were stored on the machines.A computer in the University's School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy was...

Jan 30, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Here we have another case of data backup tapes being stolen. This time they were stolen from an employee’s car. This wasn’t a rogue employee, however—certain employees were supposed to take the tapes home every night as part of a data...

Jan 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I read an article that talks about an interesting twist on ID theft (see below, registration required). Essentially, a fraudster applies for credit in your name, but purposely mispells the name, or uses a similar but different name; the same...

Jan 27, 2006 by Tom Fragala

I read this headline on a press release today: “New Software Utility Makes Identity Theft Virtually Impossible.” Immediately red flags went up for me. Then I read the press release and went to the web site. (See links below). First,...

Jan 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Ameriprise Financial, the investment advisory unit spun off from American Express last year, said yesterday that lists containing the personal information of about 230,000 customers and advisers had been compromised.A security breach occurred in late December, Ameriprise said, after a...

Jan 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Identity Theft Again Leads the ListThe Federal Trade Commission today released its annual report detailing consumer complaints about fraud and identity theft in 2005. Complaints about identity theft topped the list, accounting for 255,000 of more than 686,000 complaints...

Jan 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala

ChoicePoint Settles Data Security Breach Charges; to Pay $10 Million in Civil Penalties, $5 Million for Consumer RedressAt Least 800 Cases of Identity Theft Arose From Company’s Data BreachConsumer data broker ChoicePoint, Inc., which last year acknowledged that the personal...

Jan 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio Department of Commerce's Division of Unclaimed Funds issued an identity theft alert to Ohio residents on Tuesday after receiving numerous complaints from residents throughout the state.According to a press released issued by the Department of...

Jan 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

People's Bank says tape cannot be used for account tampering Ahh, so it’s good news then? I don’t think so… People's Bank, based in Bridgeport, Connecticut, is sending letters to the affected customers, it said in a press release....

Jan 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala

This article reports that the stolen customer data includes social security numbers and driver’s license numbers. I’m at a loss to understand why a hotel would have SSN’s. I do know from personal experience, that the property mangement systems at...

Jan 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Another case of social security numbers being used in a lax manner… Personal information on hundreds of California National Guardsmen may have been compromised after a car thief broke into a vehicle and stole a briefcase loaded with personal data...

Jan 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

The most valuable thing we have is our good name. The most common reflection of our reputation as a trustworthy consumer is our credit report, sold to businesses by a credit bureau… More from The State PIRG....

Jan 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala

When someone asks me why can't ID theft be easily prevented, I tell them to think of every rental or mortgage application they've ever filled out. Where is that data? Is it in a file cabinet that is easily accessed?...

Jan 18, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Identity theft claiming more and more victims For Audra Schmierer, it began last January with a letter from the Internal Revenue Service claiming she owed $15,000 in back taxes on income earned in 2003.Schmierer, 32, thought a mistake had been...

Jan 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Companies struggling to keep up with a patchwork of state laws related to data privacy and information security have three more to contend with, as a result of new security-breach notification laws that went into effect in Illinois, Louisiana and...

Jan 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Massachusetts authorities have made an arrest in a hacking incident that resulted in dozens of eBay customers having their credit card data stolen More: Boston Man Charged With Ebay Identity Theft Scheme....

Jan 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Some Bay Area ABN AMRO Mortgage customers this week are receiving the digital age's dreaded midnight knock on the door: A letter stating a data tape containing their Social Security numbers and other personal information had been lost by...

Jan 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala

January 9, 2006 - On Friday, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich announced that he wants to ban the unauthorized sale of phone records within his state. The practice, know in the industry as "pretexting", occurs when someone pretending to be the...

Jan 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala

Financial giant H&R Block's TaxCut software is designed to help users avoid nasty surprises when calculating their taxes. But many past and present customers of Block were surprised in a different way recently, as they received unsolicited copies of TaxCut...

Jan 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - A computer with files that have the names and Social Security numbers of approximately 70,000 current and former employees of Ford Motor Company was stolen, the company reported. An investigation into the theft -- which is...

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