Identity Theft Protection Blog with Robert Siciliano

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Numerous outlets reported that Googles Gmail and 30 other companies were hacked by the Chinese. Ars Technica reports many say the hack was targeted against Chinese dissidents.
The cyber-assault came to light on Tuesday when Google disclosed to the public that the Gmail Web service was targeted in a highly-organized attack in [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
I have pretty tight controls over my network and access to my 510 usernames and passworded accounts. Yes he just said “510”…and counting. I have full administrative rights over every PC and nobody else has access to my home or office. So it came as a surprise to me when I [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
In a shocking instance of high tech harassment, a hacker took over a woman’s Facebook account while she was on a camping trip, with no Internet and no cell phone service. The hacker impersonated this woman, but instead of attempting to scam her family and friends out of cash, he used [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
We are all familiar with the boy who cried wolf. The protagonist of the fable is a bored shepherd boy who entertained himself by calling out “Wolf!” Nearby villagers who came to his rescue found that the alarms were false and that they had wasted their time. When the boy was [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery or deception for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or computer system access; in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
What’s the point of having a home alarm system? An alarm system screams when you can’t or when you aren’t there. Noise has been proven to be an effective deterrent. From birth we are taken by surprise by loud noises. Sirens, screams and big bangs startle us and make us [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Sounds simple enough right? But when a decent looking affluent couple can breach the Whitehouse and gain entry to a formal party, protected by the Secret Service, then almost anything is possible.
Posing as a health inspector, police officer or even a secret service agent is probably done every single day with [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
The Identity Theft Resource Center Breach Report also monitors how breaches occur. This task is made more difficult by the scarcity of information provided (publicly) for approximately 1/3 of the recorded breaches. For the remainder, those events that do state how the breach occurred, malicious attacks (Hacking + Insider [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
The Identity Theft Resource Center® Breach Report recorded 498 breaches, less than the 657 in 2008, more than the 446 in 2007. Are data breaches increasing or decreasing? That is the question no one can answer. This fact will not change until there is a single data breach list [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Forrester Research, Inc. in Cambridge, MA is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.
They released their 2010 data security predictions. Heading into 2010, they are predicting five new data security trends:
1) Enterprises will keep their data security budgets relatively flat;
2) [...]