LifeLock Blog

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.

According to a recent Washington Post article there is some good news and some bad news concerning identity theft in America. The good news is that identity theft actually dropped last year by 28% to 8.1 Million. Even though 8.1 million is still a large number it is 3 Million less than last year. Also identity fraud has gone down from 56 Billion in in 2009 to 37 Billion.

Javelin has been tracking identity theft for the last eight years, ever since 2003, and this is the largest decrease they have seen. The Washington Posts believes the decrease is due to “a significant drop in data breaches, or situations in which batches of personal information have become vulnerable to identity thieves.” I also believe that the successfulness and popularity of services like Lifelock also have had an effect on the decrease in the crime.

Now it’s time for the bad news. The price out-of-pocket per incident actually when up by 63% from $387 in 2009 to $631 in 2010. Also friendly fraud, referring to identity theft by someone you know, went up by 7% as well. Many people aren’t held liable for damages done by identity theft, but often times end up paying for things out of pocket to clear their name.

All in all identity theft isn’t something to take lightly and should be take seriously. Service like Lifelock go a long way to prevent and alerting you to potential  identity theft threats. It’s good news that identity theft it down for the moment, but we have a long way to go before it’s a thing of the past.

who are the red flag laws for anyway? I know the regulation says creditors and that was supposed to include health care providers, attorneys, doctors, hospitals, and anyone who allows people to deffer payments. I’m sure they meant to include them in the regulations to make their professions less likely to be used and abused by identity thieves. It seems the attorneys and health care providers as well as other who  permit payment to be deferred have been left off the hook.  Pending litigation by the American Medical Association and other physician organizations has all but gotten them exempt as well. So who are these laws for anyway?

What follows is the new clarification as to what a creditor means.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Red Flag Program Clarification Act of 2010′.

SEC. 2. SCOPE OF CERTAIN CREDITOR REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Amendment to FCRA- Section 615(e) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681m(e)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

`(4) DEFINITIONS- As used in this subsection, the term `creditor’–

`(A) means a creditor, as defined in section 702 of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (15 U.S.C. 1691a), that regularly and in the ordinary course of business–

`(i) obtains or uses consumer reports, directly or indirectly, in connection with a credit transaction;

`(ii) furnishes information to consumer reporting agencies, as described in section 623, in connection with a credit transaction; or

`(iii) advances funds to or on behalf of a person, based on an obligation of the person to repay the funds or repayable from specific property pledged by or on behalf of the person;

`(B) does not include a creditor described in subparagraph (A)(iii) that advances funds on behalf of a person for expenses incidental to a service provided by the creditor to that person; and

`(C) includes any other type of creditor, as defined in that section 702, as the agency described in paragraph (1) having authority over that creditor may determine appropriate by rule promulgated by that agency, based on a determination that such creditor offers or maintains accounts that are subject to a reasonably foreseeable risk of identity theft.’

(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by this section shall become effective on the date of enactment of this Act.

Confused? Yeah so am I, not sure what all that says but it seems no one except for people who most likely already have identity theft detection programs active have to follow these rules. These Red Flag laws started out as a great idea, but now they a simply a job that can be fixed simply by complaining enough about them.

A Bulgarian citizen, who was living in Oregon, has been charged with identity theft of a 3-year-old child, who was kidnapped and killed in 1982, after applying for a US passport. Doichin Krustev has plead not guilt to the charges.

Doichin Krustev, better known to friends in Oregon as Jason Evers, assumed Evers’ identity when he was just 16. The real Jason Robert Evers was kidnapped and killed in 1982 at the age of 3. Krustev was caught when he tried to apply for a US passport, which checks names and Social Security numbers against the death records by a division of the US state department.

According to kboi2.com Krustev was the son of a “respected scientific scholar in Bulgaria, attended high school and college in the United States, living with a former Reagan administration lawyer and his physician wife outside Washington, D.C. He dropped out of college and disappeared about 15 years ago,”

US federal court documents suggest that a plea bargain is imminent. Krustev has been charged with knowingly making false statements on his passport application  and aggravated identity theft.

It’s a sad situation. A runaway college dropout runs away from his friends and starts a new life with a stolen identity of a child who was kidnapped and murdered. The parents of the child who had his identity stolen have got to be angry with the situation. I’m sure the theft has caused them stress and brought to the surface feelings and thoughts that they would prefer to soon forget.

LifeLock Credit Score Manager is scheduled to drop sometime in the month of October. LifeLock, the leader in proactive identity theft protection, has decided to add this feature after receiving customer feedback. LifeLock is so closely tied to what is happening to your credit that allowing people to view and monitor their Credit Scores is a very logical next step. Even though your credit score doesn’t have anything to do with identity theft a lot of people want to know what their score is. So why not add it to a service they already know and love.

LifeLock already offered members free credit reports from all three major credit bureaus annually. The new Credit Score Manage offers the same thing as well as monthly credit reports and scores from TransUnion. Credit Score Manage comes with the following features.

*  Daily Tri-Bureau Credit Monitoring (TransUnion, Equifax, Experian)
* Monthly Credit Score Updates
* Annual Tri-Bureau Credit Reports
* Annual Tri-Bureau Credit Scores
* 24/7 Credit Dispute Assistance

I think the new Credit Score Manage from LifeLock is going to be a great tool for it’s members. Allowing members to get their credit scores right from LifeLock will prevent them from having to go elsewhere trying to find them. It’s going to make a lot of people’s live just a little bit easier.

According to a Federal indictment an employee of Johns Hopkins Hospital stole names, social security numbers and address from patients and was providing them to individuals who were using the information to open credit cards. The accomplices used the information to apply for instant credit at over 50 local stores.  The scheme did more than $600,000 in damages before it was stopped.

Jasmine Amber Smith, the employee at Johns Hopkins Hospital, as well as four others have been charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft by the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office. According to the indictment the sensitive information was stolen from August 2007 through March 2009. We don’t know where in the hospital Smith worked but we can assume she had access to personal information. In the time Smith worked at the hospital as least 50 individuals and stores were affected by the breach. Some of the stores that were affected include stores such as Sears, ManoSwartz, Best Buy, Boscov and Toys R Us.

This is not the first time hospital employees have been brought up on charges of identity theft. In fact I would say that you hear about identity theft breaches most often from banks and hospitals which seems counter intuitive. These are the institutes that are designed to protect us! Protect our money and our health but you seem only able to trust their employees as far as you can throw them. It’s probably not true that a majority of business related identity thefts come from those two institutions, but it seems like it sometimes.

Ever since 1984 October has been known as National Crime Prevention Month. The purpose of which is to encourage awareness of crimes and how consumers can arm themselves to prevent these crimes from happening to them. When the general public is aware of a particular crime and understands how to prevent it you usually see a decline in that particular crime.

LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection, is teaming up with the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association to hold special identity theft summits for local and statewide law enforcement. The Summits are scheduled between October 19 and 28 in the following cities: Montgomery, Alabama, St. Louis, Missouri, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The purpose of the special summits is to educate law enforcement about the latest in identity theft statistics, how to fight the crime better, and new techniques criminals are using.

In addition to the identity theft summits LifeLock will also be holding several free educational presentations around the country designed for the general public. The presentations will educate and help the general public understand the risk of identity theft, common ways identity theft can happen, and current identity theft trends. Here are four quick tips that can help protect you, and will give you a taste as to the information given in the LifeLock identity theft presentations.

• ID your caller ID – Thieves are implementing a new technology to trick a phone’s caller identification system by giving a false name and number. The safest way to avoid being fooled is to crosscheck the phone number. If the caller ID gives the name of a bank, check the number that bank has listed to be sure it’s legitimate.
• Don’t let thieves RENT your identity – Even if you’re a homeowner, it’s a smart idea to request your rental history in case someone is using your PII to secure an apartment or other rental property in your name.
• As if going to the doctor wasn’t bad enough – Believe it or not, thieves these days even go to the lengths of using your identity or health insurance information to get their hands on pills and other drugs. You can contact companies, such as Intelliscript, to request your full 5-year history of prescriptions.
• Debt that (seriously) isn’t yours – It’s simple, really. If a so-called “debt collector” is hounding you and you don’t believe you owe anything, tell them to stop contacting you. According to federal law, a debt collector cannot continue to contact you if you tell them to stop. After you confirm you don’t owe the debt the person says you do, you may then discontinue all contact from the debt collection company by sending a letter to the collector. Be sure to keep a copy of the letter and the return receipt for verification purposes. If the “debt collector” still contacts you, other than to let you know there will be no further contact or to inform you that the agency is filing legal action, it is a violation, most likely by an identity thief.

The U.S. Department on Thursday charged 53 people in New Jersey for their connection to a identity theft ring. The identity theft ring operated acted as broker for identity documents, such as Social Security cards, which were used to commit credit card, tax and bank fraud.

Members of the identity theft ring some how obtained Social Security cards that were issued to Asian immigrants working in the American territories like American Samoa, Guam and Saipan, The identities were then sold to people of which a majority were of Korean descent. The identity theft ring would then help the purchasers of the information use the cards to obtain driver’s licenses and other identity documents from their home state. The ring also produced counterfeit driver’s licenses as well as other identity documents. Some of the defendants in this case also opened bank accounts as well as lines of credit using the fraudulent information.

The identity theft ring has caused millions of dollars of damage to U.S. banks, credit card companies, lenders and others. The identity theft ring is basically a one stop shop for identity theft. What ever you needed they could provide it for you and help use use it successfully.

It’s scary to see identity theft rings of this size functioning so well with such a large reach and clientele. According to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman “The sheer scope of the fraud – and the organization that allegedly committed it – is remarkable,” he goes on later to say in a press conference that “This type of crime puts all of us at risk, not just because of the cost to our financial institutions, but also because of the threat posed by fake identification documents.”

LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection, has just added a new service to it’s already robust set of services. LifeLock has providing the one of the best identity theft protection service for several years now. LifeLock has listened to what their customers have been requesting and they are adding a new feature, LifeLock’s Credit Score Manager.

The new feature can be added either to your regular membership or a command center membership. It provides a tri-bureau credit management system that allows LifeLock members to monitor their credit daily as well as send alerts when charges are made to your credit files. Members can receive monthly credit scores from TransUnion as well as annual scores from all three major credit bureaus.

Todd David, LifeLock CEO, has this to say about LifeLock’s new Credit Score Manager, “We have heard from consumers across the country that not only is it important that they protect their personal information from identity thieves, but that more and more life events are occurring where their credit scores and reports matter.”

The new LifeLock Credit Score Manger comes with the following set of features.

• Daily Tri-Bureau Credit Monitoring (TransUnion, Equifax, Experian)
• Monthly Credit Score Updates
• Annual Tri-Bureau Credit Reports
• Annual Tri-Bureau Credit Scores
• 24/7 Credit Dispute Assistance

Taxpayers should always be careful with their personal information. Not only because someone could steal your identity and open credit cards, but because they can also file a tax return in your name getting whatever refund you are entitled to. This happens more often than you think and is popular among illegal aliens as well as identity thieves. Illegal aliens us it to get work and to appear legal, while identity thieves just want your money. In fact billionaire Donald Bren had his tax refund check stolen from him worth 1.4 Million dollars just a month ago. So believe if it can happen to someone like Donald Bren it can happen to you.

Here are some simple things you can do to prevent a tax related identity theft.

- Know that the IRS doesn’t contact people through email. If you get an email claiming to be from the IRS you can forward it to phishing@irs.gov.

- Know that identity thieves obtain your information through several means including but not limited to stealing your wallet or purse off your person, car or home, spam email messages, going through your trash, and accessing information left from insecure websites.

- If you visit a site that is claiming to be an official IRS website and it doesn’t start with www.irs.gov, you should forward that link to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov.

- To learn how to identify a secure website you can visit the Federal Trade Commission at www.onguardonline.gov/tools/recognize-secure-site-using-ssl.aspx . Also know that even information sent to secure websites can be read and breached with the right tools. Always make sure your network is secure and that your computer is free of viruses.

- Never carry your Social Security card with you unless absolutely necessary, and make sure to store it in a safe place.

- If someone is using your Social Security number to obtain a job it will seem as if you are not reporting all your income.

- If you receive a notice that more than one tax return has been filed in your name you may have had your identity stolen. Don’t delay in contacting the IRS to begin the process of resolving the matter. You will need to prove your identity by submitting a copy of your valid government-issued identification – such as a Social Security card, driver’s license, or passport – along with a copy of a police report and/or a completed Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit. The IRS has a special department called the Identity Protection Specialized Unit which can be contacted toll-free at 800-908-4490. If you would like to learn more about the FTC guidance for reporting identity theft visit  www.ftc.gov/idtheft.