I’m sure you know that the people of Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake. It’s also likely that you donated money to a charitable cause to try to help them with rescue and recovery efforts. What you may not know is that some who tried to donate just like you may have done instead gave money and personal information to charity scammers.
Charity scammers are people who count on tragedies as their bread and butter. When disaster strikes, they aren’t sad or sympathetic, but happy. That’s because when people give en masse, as they do in incredible times of need, it’s easier to get people to fall for their schemes. People are rushing to get aid where it has to go, so they don’t take too much time to research the organizations they are funding. Bad idea.
Some of the organizations people give money to aren’t organizations at all, but instead fake charities that are actually put together by identity thieves.
Most major websites now install cookies on your computer, which track what you do online. Over time, these cookies develop a profile, which becomes your digital fingerprint, to a certain extent. You may have noticed after searching for a specific product, advertisements for that particular product or brand appearing on various other websites you visit.
The New York Times reports , “advertisers are increasingly using powerful software known as supercookies, such as so-called Flash and document object management (or DOM) cookies, which can hold more information, and Web bugs or beacons, which let sites record statistics like what ads attracted you to the site and whether you bought something. They are not removed when you clear out your cookies.”
The “harm” done here is less damaging than it is invasive. Meaning I don’t see any physical harm or identity theft ever happening as a result of this refined marketing.
Q: I would like to sign up for Identity Guard, but entering my social security number and info seems a little counter-intuitive and causes concern. How do I know this is secure? Is there another way?
A: We applaud your concern about sharing your SSN with others, but in this case your social security number (SSN) is required for Identity Guard to protect you from identity theft.
Each year the holiday season finds millions of shoppers cramming the malls and filling the online airwaves with the sounds of commerce. They are also filling both the stores and the fiber optic cables with checking account and credit card numbers. Paula Fleming, a spokesperson from the Better Business Bureau, a consumer advocacy organization, said, “[It is] critical that we all take specific steps to fight both low and high tech ID thieves.” This is especially true right now.
Low Tech Identity Thieves Low tech thieves have used approximately the same techniques for at least the past several decades to commit identity theft. Their methods include wallet snatching, shoulder skimming, and the ever popular trash digging.
Wallet snatching is, of course, when a person grabs your wallet or purse, with or without your noticing. It’s not the smartest course of action to fight a thief to get the item back, especially if he or she is bigger than you.
Two former University of Central Missouri students have been charged with stealing the identities of thousands of their classmates and faculty.
According to court documents, Joseph Camp, 26, and Daniel Fowler, 21, worked together in a computer hacking scheme while they were students during the fall semester of 2009. The two made a computer virus to infect University of Central Missouri computers, including the university president’s computer.
Once the virus was installed, the two were able to record a user’s keystrokes and download the user’s files. They obtained the username and password of a residence hall director, which they allegedly used to switch money from university accounts to their own.
They also obtained the username and password for a university administrator, allowing them to turn on the computer’s webcam to watch the administrator work and to download his e-mails, the indictment said.
Whenever you go on vacation, it’s likely people tell you to make a copy of your travel materials, your ID and your credit cards before you leave town. This can help you considerably if your purse or wallet is stolen by an identity thief – or just a run of the mill pickpocket. What people don’t tell you is that you could be providing an identity thief with your personal information just by using the copier, if that copier saves the copied data on its hard drive. While this type of theft isn’t common right now, it certainly could be in the future as people upgrade to more sophisticated office machines.
This threat was famously put to light during a report put together by CBS. Correspondent Armen Kateyian pointed out that a lot of people neglect to empty the hard drives on their copiers, which means that they have a record of each document ever copied on them.
When a virus recruits an infected PC into a botnet, a criminal hacker is able to remotely access all the data on that computer.
Robot networks, or botnets, have a varied history. A bot, which doesn’t necessarily have to be malicious or harmful, is essentially a program designed to connect to a server and execute a command or series of commands.
As reported by a McAfee study, networks of bots, otherwise known as drones or zombies, are often used to commit cybercrime. This can include “stealing trade secrets, inserting malware into source code files, disrupting access or service, compromising data integrity, and stealing employee identity information. The results to a business can be disastrous and lead to the loss of revenue, regulatory compliance, customer confidence, reputation, and even of the business itself. For government organizations, the concerns are even more far reaching.”
In the second quarter of 2010, more than two million PCs were recruited into botnets in the United States alone.