Guarding Your Social Security Number
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Everyone asks for it. Few actually need it -- as a TIME reporter found out after an hour-and-a-half telephone ordeal
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Don't take big chances with your money -- look for SIPC protection.
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Americans seek international database to carry iris, palm and finger prints
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Eager to get into the identity-theft business? Don't bother breaking into a government employee's house or staking out an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot. A recent study shows that a simple shopping jaunt on eBay or in a local used-tech store will pay off in personal info over half the time.
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Scammers and thieves are out there, but you can protect yourself.
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Blog: Panel approves a bill that backers say will help fix the problem of Social Security number misuse and identity theft. But it has a long and uphill battle to go before it becomes law.
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Identity thieves can snare Social Security numbers from a potpourri of public records, especially those maintained by state and local governments, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
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The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers is soaring to unprecedented levels, and the trend isn't expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive information.
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If your work involves sensitive electronic documents, an ounce of prevention may come in Verbatimâs new Store ânâ Go Corporate Secure U.S.B. drives.
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Companies, government agencies, schools and other institutions are spending more to protect ever-increasing volumes of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers with more sophisticated firewalls and encryption, but the investment often is too little, too late.
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Bill Gates is right about one thing: asking people to use a two-factor form of authentication would go a long way toward alleviating a lot of the password problems that plague computer security today.
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Things just aren&#39;t going well for Timothy Scott Short. Just days after a pair of tech support calls he made to printer manufacturer Digimarc&#160;resulted in his arrest, he now finds himself on the receiving end of a data breach with his Social Security number and birthdate accidentally made public via the federal court&#39;s Electronic Case Files (ECF) system.It&#39;s an ironic development, because Short, 33, was arrested in connection with the Oct. 5 theft of a Missouri Department of Revenue printer and a PC containing data on as many as 500 state residents.Short&#39;s personal information was discovered by the IDG News Service, listed on a court document called a Criminal Case Cover Sheet, which was publicly available to users of the ECF system. Normally, this document should only be accessible to those involved in the case, but it appears to have been inadvertently made public, according to a clerk with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, who asked not to be identified because she was not authorized to speak with the press. &quot;It&#39;s something on our side,&quot; she said, adding that technical staff is now looking into the problem.The U.S. Judicial Conference, which sets policy for U.S. courts, has said that this kind of information should be removed from publicly available electronic court records, but actually removing all the sensitive information has proved difficult.&quot;If you went online to various court systems, you could find social security numbers of many individuals,&quot; said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. &quot;It&#39;s a really, really difficult question to answer, just because you&#39;re dealing with so many jurisdictions.&quot;Social Security numbers are the building blocks of identity theft crime because they can be used to secure credit cards. &quot;Any time you are placing Social Security numbers online, your are subjecting that person to identity theft,&quot; Stephens said.With the push to make public documents available online, other government databases have had similar problems. Earlier this year, the states of California and Colorado were forced to take their Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) databases offline after privacy advocates pointed out that the Social Security numbers and other data they contained could be misused by identity thieves.Short, however, may have bigger problems to worry about. He&#39;s facing $250,000 in fines and 10 years in prison on charges of possession of &quot;document-making implements&quot; in connection with the theft. He was arrested after U.S. Secret Service Special Agent John Bush recognized his voice in calls placed to a tech support line of the company that makes the stolen printer.&#160;
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By Paul Wenske, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Jun. 8--If you're like lots of Americans, you're increasingly wary of identity theft.
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If you work after you've started receiving Social Security, you could lose some of your benefits.
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A memo sent last week by the While House Office of Management and Budget gives federal agencies 120 days to develop and implement security notification policies, and to start planning to reduce or eliminate the unnecessary use of Social Security numbers and similar personal data.
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A poll suggests that a large majority of Americans support restrictions on the use of Social Security numbers if it would help prevent identity theft.
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Passwords are out and tokens are the authentication wave of the future, right? Not so fast, says Jon Espenschied. The next next thing is both stranger and more familiar.