Category: Fraud

In trending news, Mississippi state Representative Lester Carpenter found that someone else had filed for his 2012 tax return. While the identity thief asked for Carpenter’s tax refund to be automatically deposited, he or she had provided incorrect bank account information, causing the check to be mailed to Carpenter’s home address. “Carpenter went to the [...]

In our recent consumer research survey, we found that a whopping 43% of parents do not know that child identity theft is a growing concern, and only 18% of parents are concerned with their child’s identity being stolen online. Meanwhile, according to ITAC’s 2012 Child Identity Fraud Report, one in 40 U.S. households with minor [...]

If a company is breached, should the breach be reported to authorities? To customers? To the public? While breach disclosure laws have been debated on and off for the past few years, it looks like they are making it back into the spotlight. Many companies would prefer to keep security breaches to themselves – to [...]

It’s that time of year again! As you finish your holiday décor and put your gifts under the tree, make sure you stay safe while shopping for your loved ones online this season with these quick tips. Make sure your devices are up-to-date. Any device you use for shopping; including smartphones, tablets and computers; should [...]

CSID’s CyberAgent technology scans more than 10,000 underground websites and forums per day—more than 600,000 individual web pages—for personal identifying information (PII) being bought and sold. This PII includes bits like Social Security Numbers, email addresses, passwords and credit and debit card numbers. In fact, the credit and debit card numbers often come with the [...]

By Adam Kennedy, CSID Identity Restoration Supervisor; Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist Imagine you’re on your favorite tax preparation software recalling incomes and deductions from the year past. Finally, you’ve reached the end of the seemingly endless questionnaire and the estimated refund number glares from the screen like a stuffed piggy bank waiting to [...]

The IRS admittedly has little control over protecting your tax returns against identity theft. The problem is too big, the data too widely available, prevention too rarely attended to until it’s already too late. Your tax returns are the Holy Grail of identity theft because they contain virtually every piece of information a fraudster needs [...]

By John Sileo, CSID consumer security expert It’s nerve racking to realize that the IRS increasingly struggles to control taxpayer identity theft. Since 2008, the IRS has identified 470,000 incidents of identity theft affecting more than 390,000 taxpayers. “Victims of tax-related identity theft are the casualties of a system ill-equipped to deal with the growing proficiency [...]

In honor of Data Privacy Day on January 28, initiated by the National Cyber Security Alliance, we have compiled a few simple best practices for businesses to protect and secure valuable data. Password Changes Encourage or require employees to regularly change passwords used for company servers, email and programs every 90 days. This will help [...]

PC Mag recently published an infographic that visualizes a study by Commtouch about “The State of Hacked Accounts.” Commtouch collected data from email users who have had their email accounts hacked to draw conclusions about email security and the motives of email hackers. Findings: The study found that two-thirds of hacked email accounts are used [...]