Identity Management: From Cradle to Grave

By | April 16th, 2014|Uncategorized|

ID360 picLast week, CSID participated in the 3rd annual UT Center for Identity ID360 conference. The conference brought together some of the best and brightest minds in identity management to talk about problems, trends, and solutions related to protecting and securing PII.

A number of topics were discussed during this year’s conference but there were a few key themes that resonated through many of the presentations and panels.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is no such thing as a free social media site.

This is one that we have been discussing lately at CSID. If you think you are getting social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn for free, you are not. If you click “like” on Facebook to get a coupon or enter a contest with a business – that exchange is not free. When post your job experience on LinkedIn, check in to an establishment on Four Square, or post a review on Yelp – all of these are costing you. You get to use social media sites in exchange for your personal information, including name, history, interests, etc. – and this personal information has value. Most social sites use this data to sell targeted advertising, but that may not always be the case. A complete identity profile for an individual can be sold for as much as $8,000 on the identity black market. Always remember that your personal data, no matter how innocuous you feel it is, has value, and be wary of what you share online.

Vital documents need a facelift.

One of the most engaging panels of the conference was on “The ‘State’ of Identity Records: Who owns, protects, and uses vital identity documents issued by the State.” Panelists talked about vital documents like birth certificates and Social Security numbers, and some of the efforts underway to better protect these documents. The state of vital records is a bit of a mess. Every state and every registrar within a state issues its own records. For example, there are more than 400 registrars in the state of Texas and only 254 counties. Each of these registrars issues their own birth certificates. That means there are more than 400 different designs of birth certificate you can get in Texas, which becomes difficult when it comes to identifying fraudulent records. There are efforts underway in this field to secure vital documents. In Texas, for example, there are efforts to get all registrars to use the same type of paper when issuing a vital document. This will make it a bit more difficult for forge records. In the future, it is very likely that vital documents we be digital. This will let states work together more easily to verify document authenticity and also reduce instances of forgery.

Don’t ignore the identity issue.

One key theme throughout the conference was the importance of taking control of your identity. Once an individual’s identity has been compromised, there are resources that can help restore and recuperate. However, it is always better to act defensively from the get-go. Be vigilant and practice the fundamentals like using secure passwords, locking your devices, and checking your accounts frequently for fraudulent activity. An identity protection service can help with some of the most time-consuming aspects of the fundamentals. As the conference’s “Cradle to Grave” theme implies, protecting your identity is a life-long endeavor.

What are you currently doing to protect your identity? Who owns, protects and uses your PII?  Let us know what you think on Twitter and Facebook, and be sure to check out our Tumblr for the latest industry news stories.

April Recap: All About Community

By | May 7th, 2013|Uncategorized|

roundup5kTake a look at what we’ve been up to this past month, including a number of community events in our headquarter hometown, Austin, TX:

CSID at ID360
Being headquartered near the University of Texas gave us the opportunity to participate in ID360, an annual conference put on by UT’s Center for Identity. This year, three CSID members spoke at the conference, including CSID vice president Bryan Hjelm with a talk on the future of identity, development director Joel Lang on the importance of credentials when it comes to malware, and president Joe Ross on the impact of social and mobile Big Data on identity and privacy. See more details about our participation in ID360.

Community Fun: Texas Round-Up + The Austin Cup
We laced up our running shoes and hit the pavement to participate in Texas Round-Up, a local 5K promoting healthy, fit lifestyles. The proceeds went to Texas public elementary schools in Texas to improve youth participation in sports and fitness. After the 5K, we headed to the The Austin Cup, a bowling tournament supporting the Center for Child Protection. Catch photos from both events on our Facebook page.

ISSA Chapter Event
CSID sponsored ISSA’s chapter meeting where HGMB Inc. CEO David Smith spoke about the future of cloud computing and Big Data, and how these changes will impact security. He touched on new strategies on how to manage the risks associated with cloud computing across many devices.

What we’re looking forward to moving in May – a big move!
We’re growing our team and office space in May! CSID has outgrown our current office and is moving to a new location this May. Be sure to check out open job opportunities for more information on how to join our ever-growing team.

March Recap: In It to Win It – From Happy Hour to Consumer Research

By | April 11th, 2013|Uncategorized|

What a busy month for us. March was full of events, research reports, awards and more. Take a look at the highlights below:

CSID at SXSWi
Since we’re headquartered in Austin, TX, home to South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), we take part in the festival each year. This year we hosted a booth at the Tech Career Expo during the week, and then enjoyed Sunday evening with colleagues, partners and friends for our Protect Your Buzz Happy Hour. Check out pictures from the event on Facebook, and thanks to everyone who came!

New Partnership and Twitter Chat
This month we became partners with cybersecurity awareness campaign, STOP. THINK. CONNECT. We also co-hosted one of their monthly security themed Twitter chats (#chatstc) with the FTC to discuss child identity protection. We had a great turnout and look forward to hosting another Twitter chat soon.

Child Identity Theft Research and Webinar
We conducted a survey of parents to get insight into their knowledge of and concern about child identity theft. We found that while many parents are aware that child identity theft is a possibility, and most are concerned, there is a clear disconnect among this concern, awareness and the number of parents who are taking proactive action to protect their children. We released the research as a white paper and an infographic, congruent with a live webinar on the topic that we hosted in early April.

CSID’s Joel Lang at Austin AMA
Shout out to Joel Lang, our development director for ETI, who spoke at an Austin AMA event about “monetizing data in the B2B world” with the CEO of nFusion and the VP of Marketing at Bulldog Solutions.

Congrats to Sergey, CUA of the Month
In March, Human Factors International (HFI) named our Senior UI/UX Architect, Sergey Sinyakov, as Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) of the month. In his interview with HFI, Sergey discussed how usability plays into identity theft products. Go Sergey!

What We’re Looking Forward To in April – ID360 Conference
We’re looking forward to hearing CSID VP Bryan Hjelm and Joel Lang, Development Director of ETI, speak at the UT Center for Identity’s annual ID360 Conference later this month. Bryan will be speaking about the future of identity protection on the morning of April 30, while Joel will discuss “The Battle Against Breaches: Going Beyond Signature Based Malware Detection” on May 1. Join us! Register now.

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CSID at ID360

By | April 24th, 2012|Uncategorized|

Being based in Austin, we are lucky to have the University of Texas at Austin (or simply UT to us Texans) in our backyard. In addition to great education and sports programs (Hook ‘em), UT Austin is also home to the UT Center for Identity, a research group devoted to advancing identity management – a topic we can relate to.

 The UT Center for Identity hosted the group’s very first ID360 conference earlier this week. The purpose of the conference – gather some of the best and brightest security professionals in education, business and government and talk identity security.

 The conference had an excellent line up of speakers including keynotes from Dr. Peter Tippet from Verizon and Kim Little from Lexis Nexis. Presenters also covered a number of relevant topics from security transparency to recent trends in biometrics.

Our very own VP of sales, Marc Ostryniec spoke on the topic of proactive identity protection for enterprise businesses. Come back later this week and we’ll have a more extensive blog post on Marc’s talk as well as a link to a downloadable paper on the topic. 

Identity protection is going to continue to be a hot-button issue throughout 2012 as breaches, data loss and hacks continue to occur. Luckily there are some really smart people working on how to mitigate the damages and risks of identity theft and, if what we heard at the ID360 conference is any indication, there are some exciting and innovative solutions in our future.  

CSID Partners with the Center for Identity

By | April 3rd, 2012|Uncategorized|

CSID is excited to announce its official partnership with the University of Texas Center for Identity in Austin, Texas. Through this partnership, CSID and the Center for Identity will connect and collaborate on research and pilot projects focused on all aspects of identity – including identity management, identity security and best practices for protection.

The Center for Identity works to deliver the highest quality, most recognized identity management discoveries, applications, education and outreach available.  The center works closely with students, governments – federal, state and local – as well as key players in the commercial industry to support its education, research and outreach efforts. 

With this new partnership, CSID will:

  • Participate and contribute to research and pilot projects on identity protection and security
  • Hold a Board of Directors seat and engage in the Research and Education Committees
  • Participate in Center-hosted events like the ID360: The Global Forum on Identity and Identity Symposiums
  • Provide dynamic internship opportunities for students interested in all aspects of the business from product research and development to client services

CSID is looking forward to working with the Center and its partners on upcoming opportunities to further research, technologies and education for identity protection, and management and security.

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