Protecting Your Identity

1
Protecting Your Identity

• Frontier Presents
• Nick Francesco
• Dave Enright
• Steve Rea
• Rob Linton

2
Protecting Your Identity

• What you should know about Identity Theft
• Simple steps you can take to protect yourself
  online
• Safe surfing
• What do I do if I think my ID was stolen?
• Security in the Real World
• Passwords and the Abuse Thereof
• Questions

3
What You Should Know

• Incidence of ID Theft in the Last Year
• New accounts other fraud 1.5
• Misuse of existing non-credit card account - .7
• Misuse of existing credit card number 2.4
• Total victims 4.6
• That's over 9 million people in the US alone!

According to 4,057 telephone interviews in an
FTC study
4
Cost of ID Theft in the Last Year

• Average loss to businesses per victim 4,800
• Total loss to businesses 47.6 billion
• Average hours each victim spent on resolution 30
• Total hours wasted 297 million
• Average out-of-pocket expense to victim 500

5
Reporting Identity Theft

• Only about 25 of people report identity theft
• Only 22 notified the credit bureau
• 25 of the reported thefts were a physical,
  rather than an electronic, theft

6
Who's Stealing Your Identity?

• In only 26 of the cases, the victim knew the
  person who stole their identity
• 9 of the time, it was a family member or
  relative
• 6 of the time, it was someone at a financial
  institution or company who had access to the
  victim's information

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How Were These Identities Stolen?

• Lost or stolen wallet or credit card 14
• Stolen mail 4
• During a purchase 13
• That's only 31

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Other Consequences of ID Theft

• Credit card problems
• Harassment by bill collectors
• Loan rejection
• Banking problems
• Insurance rejection
• Utilities cut off
• Law suits

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How to Protect Yourself

• Best practices online
• Best practices offline

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How to Protect Yourself Online

• Lock your system down (the Security Tango!)
• Run a safe email program
• Run a safe Web browser
• Be careful what you click on

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The Security Tango

• http//SecurityTango.com/
• Clean your machine
• Keep it clean
• Always run
• Antivirus
• Firewall
• Regularly run
• spyware killers

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Safe Email Programs

• Thunderbird - http//www.mozilla.org/products/thun
  derbird/
• Eudora - http//eudora.com/
• NOT Outlook or Outlook Express!
• NOT Web-based email!
• Gmail
• Yahoo! mail
• HotMail

13
Safe Web Browsers

• Firefox - http//www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
  
• Opera - http//opera.com/
• NOT Internet Explorer!

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Be Careful What You Click On I

• Phishing
• the practice of luring unsuspecting Internet
  users to a fake Web site by using
  authentic-looking email with the real
  organization's logo, in an attempt to steal
  passwords, financial or personal information, or
  introduce a virus attack the creation of a Web
  site replica for fooling unsuspecting Internet
  users into submitting personal or financial
  information or passwords

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Be Careful What You Click On II
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Be Careful What You Click On III
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Be Careful What You Click On IV
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Be Careful What You Click On V
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Be Careful What You Download

• Trojans
• Programs that pretend to be one thing, when they
  are really something else. For example, a program
  that purports to be a funny (or dirty) picture of
  Bill Clinton or Saddam Hussein, but, while you're
  looking at the picture, it's deleting files from
  your hard drive. The name, of course, comes from
  the tale of the Trojan Horse in Homer's Iliad.

20
Safe Surfing

• Where can you find out about
• hoaxes
• scams
• viruses

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Finding Out About Hoaxes

• Don't pass those emails along some of them are
  simply misguided, but some are downright
  dangerous
• http//snopes.com/
• http//www.nonprofit.net/hoax/default.htm
• http//hoaxbusters.ciac.org/
• http//www.vmyths.com/

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Finding Out About Scams

• If it sounds too good to be true...
• http//nsi.org/tips/scams.html
• http//www.fraud.org/

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Finding Out About Viruses

• First, never pass along cute pictures, programs,
  emails, websites all of them can contain
  viruses!
• Security Tango Virus Alert Page
• http//securitytango.com/alerts.php
• CA Security Advisor
• http//www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/

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What Do I Do if My ID is Stolen?

• Make contact the fraud departments of any one of
  the three major credit bureaus to place a fraud
  alert on your credit file
• Close the accounts that you know or believe have
  been tampered with or opened fraudulently
• File a police report get a copy of the report
  to submit to your creditors
• File your complaint with the FTC

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How Do I Place a Fraud Alert?

• Equifax - www.equifax.com
• 800-525-6285
• Experian - www.experian.com
• 888-EXPERIAN (397-3742)
• Trans Union - www.transunion.com
• 800-680-7289

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How Do I Complain to the FTC?

• https//rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/
• widtpubl.startup?Z_ORG_CODEPU03
• That's supposed to be all one line, but it didn't
  fit

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What Else Can I Do?

• Read Take Charge Fighting Back Against Identity
  Theft
• http//www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/idtheft
  .htm

28
Security in the Real World

• Set your screensaver to help you
• start quickly (one or two minutes)
• lock the system when it starts
• NOTE only works on Windows XP, 2000, Linux
• Lock your door/desk
• Chain your laptop
• Secure your passwords!!!

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Passwords I

• DON'T POST THEM
• on your monitor
• under your keyboard
• on your wall
• in your desk drawer
• ANYWHERE AT ALL!!!

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Passwords II

• DON'T SET THEM TO
• your or your grandmother's maiden name
• your dog's or cat's or child's name
• anybody's birthday
• your pet name for your significant other
• your favorite sports team/player
• your car/boat/motorcycle brand
• anything associated with you

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Passwords III

• BEST
• Questzalcoatl55
• IgNiGnOrIR34DoP
• REALISTIC
• happy34monkey
• stew_pot37
• 258cAshieR852

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Passwords IV

• Change them regularly
• Don't set a pattern
• happy34monkey
• happy35monkey
• Write it down, seal it in an envelope, and give
  it to your supervisor
• and when you change your password, do it again

33
Questions