Identity Theft Protection Blog with Robert Siciliano

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Chip and PIN is the name of a government-backed initiative in the United Kingdom to implement the EMV standard for secure payments.
There have been rumblings from Europe over the past year about American based credit cards that solely rely on the magnetic strip not being accepted in the future due [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
The sheer volume of potential targets coupled with the vast amounts of money to be made has captured the attention of the global criminal hacking community.
Enterprise networks are becoming hardened and they are still vulnerable. Some are being penetrated directly while others are accessed through 3rd parities such as their clients [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Financial institutions have the most to lose and the most to gain by improving security education of their clients and employees.
A while back I appeared on a local TV show talking about phishing. Amazingly, still, not everyone knows what phishing is. A good friend saw the show and was shocked [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Diploma mills were born along with elearning institutions who are actually legitimate and accredited bodies. Degrees and diplomas issued by diploma mills are frequently used for fraudulent purposes, such as obtaining employment, promotions, raises, or bonuses on false pretenses. They can also be used as a form of fake ID when [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Botnets are robot networks of computers connected to the Internet that sit in our homes and offices. A botnet is generally banks of multiple PC’s from the 10’s to 10,000’s to millions. There are no hard numbers on botnets but last figure I saw was somewhere between 3-5 million. Another stat [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Readers of these posts are familiar with ATM skimming. ATM skimming is a billion dollar problem and growing. A relatively new scam over the past few years is electronic funds transfers at the point of sale (EFTPOS ) skimming. People commonly swipe both credit and debit cards through the in-store machines [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
In the University of Cincinnati’s Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, the authors write “The general population must be engaged as active security providers, not simply beneficiaries of security policy, because their practices often create the threats to which government responds.” Somebody is saying to take personal responsibility and start [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
A Texas bank is suing one of its customers who was hit by an $800,000 online bank theft that could determine who is to be held responsible for protecting their online accounts from fraud.
Computerworld reports Romanian and Italian based criminal hackers launched numerous wire transfers out of the client’s back account. [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
In the latter half of 2009, criminal hackers went from mass SQL injection campaigns to targeted attacks. SQL is abbreviation of Structured Query Language. Pronounced ”Ess Que El” or ”Sequel”. The attackers shift in strategy focused on targeting high-profile websites, concluded Websense’s State of Internet Security report for the third [...]

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Police believe they may have uncovered an international ATM “skimming” ring responsible for stealing money from hundreds of local accounts. Izaylo Hristov, 28, of Ontario, Canada, a Bulgarian citizen, was arrested at an ATM in the Boston area along with Viadiclav Vladevo and Anton Venkov. Venkov had $99,100 in $20 bills [...]