LifeLock Blog

It’s amazing what information people throw away these days even businesses that are supposed to be responsible with your information seem no to care. So it seems to be the case in an identity theft case out of Twin Peaks, California. Three Los Angeles residents have been arrested who were in possession of counterfeit driver’s licenses, checkbooks and personal information belonging to about 1,000 people.

The three people who were arrested were Eugene Ross, 55, Debra Jones, 51, and Arthur Hill, 51. The police said the thieves received their information from going through garbage at banks, car dealerships, and other business. They then used the information to open up accounts for cell phone and cable accounts which they would open for people for money.

One elderly woman from Twin Peaks claims her identity has been compromised since 2007. Police say that over 10 accounts had been opened in her name. Purchases on one of those accounts is what lead them to the 900 block of East 81st Street in Los Angeles where they could the stolen personal information.

It’s amazing what people throw away. You would think with the rise in identity theft businesses would be more careful with what they do with other peoples personal information. I would like to think it’s harder than simply going through a dumpster to steal some’s identity, but I guess it’s not.

Identity theft is a terrible thing. It ruins your credit, costs you money, and is a pain to take care of take sometimes years to resolve. Medical identity theft is when someone uses another’s identity to get medical attention. Why is this so bad? Well for starters the hospital sends you the bill, so you have to take care of that, and second if you happen to live near the person who stole your identity the hospital could get your medical records confused with the thieves, which could result in deadly mistakes. For example if your blood types are different a simple blood transfusion could kill you!

What makes medical identity theft even worse is many hospitals will deny you access to the medical records created by the thieves records citing HIPAA, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Even though both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Health and Human Services say it that hospitals should give you access to the records. So many times you will have no idea what information is in there that could effect how the hospital treats you

Another problem is the fact there is no central agency who’s job it is to identify and correct medical records in the case of an identity theft. Even if a hospital is informed of an erroneous medical file there is no systematic way of fixing that record. A move toward networked electronic medical records has made medical records available to any doctor anywhere, which makes this type of problem even worse. Instead of having to deal with incorrect records at a hospital you both visit, you will have to worry about it effecting you no matter where you go.

Something needs to be done to stop this kind of crime. I would much rather have my credit ruined than be effected by bad medical records. There needs to be a centralized location to identify and correct this type of problem before it gets more people killed.

Facebook has constant malware attacks that most can void simply by not allowing the application access to their account. This recent malware attack, piggybacking on Charlie Sheen’s recent publicity, is much like the others except it uses a technique called click jacking to make it a little bit more effective.

The scam works like this. You see the article posted by a friend with a catchy title like “RIP! Charlie Sheen Found Dead at his House.” You click it and it takes you to a page that looks much like Youtube but isn’t. If you click anywhere on the page the malware gains access to your Facebook profile and it will start to post itself to others profiles. This is followed by a survey, that to this day I don’t know why people fill out, and then some reports of an actual virus that installs itself onto your computer.

If you click this link all you need to do is go to Account>>Privacy Setting.  In the bottom left you will see a section called ‘apps and websites’ click the link that says Edit your settings. Find the recent addition and remove the application’s access to your account. Then find the posts it made to friends walls and your own and remove them. That should take care of it.

Charlie Sheen has been all over the place this week, his show ‘Two and a Half Men’ has had the rest of it’s 8 episodes canceled, he had a very interesting interview with Pierce Morgan, and he joined Twitter making a world record for shortest amount of time to reach 1 Million followers. All that to say he is getting a lot of attention on the internet and elsewhere. Cyber criminals and mischief-makers start to see dollar signs and are seeking to poison search results with Charlie Sheen keywords.

Every time someone or some situation gets popular criminals seek to take advantage of it. We see it with Facebook issues and we saw it with Obama’s inaugural speech among many others. According to the spokesperson over at Invincea, a software security firm, criminals are looking to

“poison the search results and the link would appear to be taking you to a Charlie Sheen video, when actuality it is directing the user to a malicious site. Most of the time these malicious sites are fake anti-virus attacks … where the user thinks they’re infected when in reality, running the (anti-virus) scan is what installs the malware.”

Of course these fake malware sites are completely bogus and you should never click to scan for malware virus on any website. People are getting smarter about this kind of thing, but it seems criminals are getting sneaker too by attacking popular topics and keywords. Amoung the most dangerous keywords, other than Charlie Sheen, right now are “Jenni J-Woww” — Jenni “Jwoww” Farley of “Jersey Shore.” Be careful as you Google these popular search terms and don’t fall for their trickery.

Stay Safe – The Credit Protector