This was just a great comment on the Seminar post that I wanted to post it.
It is from Ronald Maglothin, a a Viet-Nam Vet:
Great article and it angers me (as a Viet-Nam Vet) that our military personnel are specificly targeted by these thieves. Identity Theft comes in five areas and you're right. most people just consider the financial side. Add criminal, driver's license, social security and (like you said) medical to the list. Can you imagine going to the hospital for a procedure and your blood type has been changed (it happens). Do you know that if a thief collects just one check from your social security, that the government can (and will) freeze your account for 2 to 3 years and it can take years to clean that up. How about being pulled over by the police, because you have a tail light out and when he does the background check on you, there's a warrant for your arrest because you failed to appear in court, in another state, for a violation that isn't yours. Try telling the officer, "But that's isn't me!" A lot of good a credit monitor service will do you in that circumstance. One of the biggest targets today are children. They are issued a social security number at birth. That number is worth $5,000 on the black market. Reason being is that detection of the breach usually doesn't happen until the child becomes a teenager and goes to get credit to buy a car or a background check to rent an apartment. I've read an artilce where a 5 year old in my town owns 3 houses (in foreclosure) and 2 cars. Like you said, the number of victims increase in the millions, every year. Unfortunately when you are a victim of this crime, you are guilty until you prove who you are. The average financial cost is in the thousands and it can take over 500 personal hours to clean this up. Most also don't realize that you're also going to need legal help to clear this up. I would like to see more involvement on a state level to help curb this crime. Sorry, I don't trust the feds. At least California and New York reconizes some of the problem and have started doing something about it.
However do not relay on your government to protect you, they are some of the ones causing most of the problems. Learn to protect yourself. Come talk with me. I can be reached at www.legalshield.com/hub/taylor_ra
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Seminar Urges Caution to Avoid Identity Theft
December 23, 2011
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Some Fort Meade residents and employees may be crime victims and not know it.
More than 60 identity theft reports have been filed with the Fort Meade Police Department since April, said Russell Wilson, Fort Meade's chief criminal investigator.
It is one of the reasons why the Directorate of Emergency Services organized a seminar about how to prevent and recover from identity theft on Dec. 14 at the Post Theater. The average identity theft report on Fort Meade is between $600 and $1,800, said Wilson.
This is the seminar and workshop I give on Identity Theft. Read More
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that nine million Americans have their identities stolen each year. It believes more people are victims but do not know it until they review their credit report or credit card statement, or receive a collection notice.
"Identity theft is basically using personal identification information that is unique to a person for illegal means," said Keith Gethers, a certified identity theft risk-management specialist, who was one of two presenters at the seminar. "We typically associate that with name, Social Security number, address and credit card number."
While anyone can potentially have his identity stolen, thieves target certain types of people such as military personal, said Gethers. "[Identity thieves] pay attention to levels of deployment," he said.
Social media users, including service members and their families, who post too detailed information are putting themselves at risk of identity theft, said Gethers.
"[Thieves] work [social media] in terms of intelligence information," he said. "Some people put on when they're going on vacation and everything. So deployments [are] just a small part of that. We have to be vigilant about what information is out there and what we share."
Hacking and social media impersonation also are methods identity thieves use, said Gethers.
"They'll go [on] Facebook or something like that and pretend to be you," he said, "and it's really attached to things that we wouldn't think of as identity theft, but the end result might result in something like bullying ... by putting something outlandish on [the Internet] that might make [the victim] the target of other people."
There is no federal law against Internet impersonation, said Bridgette Harwood, a victims' rights attorney, who also spoke at the seminar. However, California and New York do have state laws that criminalize Internet impersonation.
Folks, just imagine that now you can take a vacation, go shopping, be online and still know that your identity is protected with the Identity Theft Shield brought to you by Harvard Risk Management and LegalShield.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
How Much Is Your Identity Worth?
How much does it cost for thieves to discover the data that unlocks identity for creditors, such as your Social Security number, birthday, or mother’s maiden name? Would it surprise you to learn that crooks are selling this data to any and all comers for pennies on the dollar?
At least, that’s the going price at superget.info. This fraudster-friendly site has been operating since July 2010, and markets the ability to look up SSNs, birthdays and other sensitive information on millions of Americans. Registration is free, and accounts are funded via WebMoney and Liberty Reserve, virtual currencies that are popular in the cybercriminal underground.
Superget lets users search for specific individuals by name, city, and state. Each “credit” costs USD$1, and a successful hit on a Social Security number or date of birth costs 3 credits each.
READ MORE
At least, that’s the going price at superget.info. This fraudster-friendly site has been operating since July 2010, and markets the ability to look up SSNs, birthdays and other sensitive information on millions of Americans. Registration is free, and accounts are funded via WebMoney and Liberty Reserve, virtual currencies that are popular in the cybercriminal underground.
Superget lets users search for specific individuals by name, city, and state. Each “credit” costs USD$1, and a successful hit on a Social Security number or date of birth costs 3 credits each.
READ MORE
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Digital Data on Patients Raises Risk of Breaches
One afternoon last spring, Micky Tripathi received a panicked call from an employee. Someone had broken into his car and stolen his briefcase and company laptop along with it.
So began a nightmare that cost Mr. Tripathi’s small nonprofit health consultancy nearly $300,000 in legal, private investigation, credit monitoring and media consultancy fees. Not to mention 600 hours dealing with the fallout and the intangible cost of repairing the reputational damage that followed.
Mr. Tripathi’s nonprofit, the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative in Waltham, Mass., works with doctors and hospitals to help digitize their patient records. His employee’s stolen laptop contained unencrypted records for some 13,687 patients — each record containing some combination of a patient’s name, Social Security number, birth date, contact information and insurance information — an identity theft gold mine.
His experience was hardly uncommon. As part of the 2009 stimulus bill, the federal government provides incentive payments to doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic health records. Some 57 percent of office-based physicians now use electronic health records, a 12 percent jump from last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
An unintended consequence is that as patient records have been digitized, health data breaches have surged. The number of reported breaches is up 32 percent this year from last year, according to the Ponemon Institute, a security research group. Those breaches cost the industry an estimated $6.5 billion last year. In almost half the cases, a lost or stolen phone or personal computer was responsible.
In a blog post, Mr. Tripathi describes the days after the theft as a “vortex.” Fresh in his mind was a similar, albeit smaller, breach at Massachusetts General Hospital just months earlier in which a hospital employee left detailed clinical records for 192 patients on a subway. The breach had cost the hospital $1 million in settlement fees.
“We’re a nonprofit with 35 people on staff,” says Mr. Tripathi. “A million-dollar fine would have decimated us.”
Mr. Tripathi says his nonprofit had just enacted a policy requiring that all patient files be encrypted, but had yet to decide on an encryption provider. All that stood between a determined computer thief and his patient data was a few passwords.
Mr. Tripathi went to work assembling a crisis team of lawyers and customers and a chief security officer. They hired a private investigator to scour local pawnshops and Craigslist for the stolen laptop. The biggest headache, he says, was deciphering how much about the breach his nonprofit needed to disclose.
Health organizations are required by federal law to report data breaches that affect more than 500 people to the Department of Health and Human Services. The department’s Office of Civil Rights publishes the equivalent of a data breach “Wall of Shame” on its Web site — which today includes 380 breaches affecting more than 18 million people.
Mr. Tripathi said he quickly discovered just how many ways there were to count to 500. The law requires disclosure only in cases that “pose a significant risk of financial, reputational or other harm to the individual affected.” His team spent hours poring over a backup of the stolen laptop files. Of the nearly 14,000 patient records on the stolen laptop, most records did not warrant disclosure. In 2,777 cases, for instance, a record listed only a patient’s name.
Complicating matters were liability rules. In the eyes of the law, Mr. Tripathi’s nonprofit is a contractor that acts on behalf of health providers. The legal burden of protecting patient data actually falls on his clients: the physicians and hospitals who entrusted his nonprofit with their files.
“The laws create a perverse outcome,” he says. “It was our fault, but from a federal perspective, it wasn’t our breach.”
Mr. Tripathi narrowed down the group of patients whose data put them at serious risk for identity theft to 998 people across seven physician practices. Only one practice broke the 500-patient threshold requiring disclosure on the Department of Health and Human Services Web site.
His office got to work notifying the affected patients of the data breach. They offered free credit monitoring — though less than 10 percent took them up on the option — spending a total of $6,000.
In the aftermath, Mr. Tripathi says his company destroyed all patient data on mobile devices and temporarily prohibited employees from removing patient data from clients’ offices. The company now mandates that all data be encrypted, and employees are required to tell health providers what data they will need to access and how they plan to use it.
He never found the stolen laptop, and the incident, all told, cost his nonprofit $288,000.
In many ways, Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative got off easy. In October, a desktop computer containing unencrypted records on more than four million patients was stolen from Sutter Health, a nonprofit health system based in Sacramento. A rock was thrown through a window to gain access to the computer. The theft is now the subject of two class-action suits, each of which seeks $1,000 for each patient record breached.
“Breaches are going to be one of the big challenges as more physicians and hospitals adopt electronic health records,” Mr. Tripathi says. “We’re entering a brave new world.”
This going to jappen more and more. Learn how to protect you, your employees, and your company
www.legalshield.com/hub/taylor_ra
Get the Identity Theft Shield Today, for as low as $12.50 a month membership.
Mr. Tripathi’s nonprofit, the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative in Waltham, Mass., works with doctors and hospitals to help digitize their patient records. His employee’s stolen laptop contained unencrypted records for some 13,687 patients — each record containing some combination of a patient’s name, Social Security number, birth date, contact information and insurance information — an identity theft gold mine.
His experience was hardly uncommon. As part of the 2009 stimulus bill, the federal government provides incentive payments to doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic health records. Some 57 percent of office-based physicians now use electronic health records, a 12 percent jump from last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
An unintended consequence is that as patient records have been digitized, health data breaches have surged. The number of reported breaches is up 32 percent this year from last year, according to the Ponemon Institute, a security research group. Those breaches cost the industry an estimated $6.5 billion last year. In almost half the cases, a lost or stolen phone or personal computer was responsible.
In a blog post, Mr. Tripathi describes the days after the theft as a “vortex.” Fresh in his mind was a similar, albeit smaller, breach at Massachusetts General Hospital just months earlier in which a hospital employee left detailed clinical records for 192 patients on a subway. The breach had cost the hospital $1 million in settlement fees.
“We’re a nonprofit with 35 people on staff,” says Mr. Tripathi. “A million-dollar fine would have decimated us.”
Mr. Tripathi says his nonprofit had just enacted a policy requiring that all patient files be encrypted, but had yet to decide on an encryption provider. All that stood between a determined computer thief and his patient data was a few passwords.
Mr. Tripathi went to work assembling a crisis team of lawyers and customers and a chief security officer. They hired a private investigator to scour local pawnshops and Craigslist for the stolen laptop. The biggest headache, he says, was deciphering how much about the breach his nonprofit needed to disclose.
Health organizations are required by federal law to report data breaches that affect more than 500 people to the Department of Health and Human Services. The department’s Office of Civil Rights publishes the equivalent of a data breach “Wall of Shame” on its Web site — which today includes 380 breaches affecting more than 18 million people.
Mr. Tripathi said he quickly discovered just how many ways there were to count to 500. The law requires disclosure only in cases that “pose a significant risk of financial, reputational or other harm to the individual affected.” His team spent hours poring over a backup of the stolen laptop files. Of the nearly 14,000 patient records on the stolen laptop, most records did not warrant disclosure. In 2,777 cases, for instance, a record listed only a patient’s name.
Complicating matters were liability rules. In the eyes of the law, Mr. Tripathi’s nonprofit is a contractor that acts on behalf of health providers. The legal burden of protecting patient data actually falls on his clients: the physicians and hospitals who entrusted his nonprofit with their files.
“The laws create a perverse outcome,” he says. “It was our fault, but from a federal perspective, it wasn’t our breach.”
Mr. Tripathi narrowed down the group of patients whose data put them at serious risk for identity theft to 998 people across seven physician practices. Only one practice broke the 500-patient threshold requiring disclosure on the Department of Health and Human Services Web site.
His office got to work notifying the affected patients of the data breach. They offered free credit monitoring — though less than 10 percent took them up on the option — spending a total of $6,000.
In the aftermath, Mr. Tripathi says his company destroyed all patient data on mobile devices and temporarily prohibited employees from removing patient data from clients’ offices. The company now mandates that all data be encrypted, and employees are required to tell health providers what data they will need to access and how they plan to use it.
He never found the stolen laptop, and the incident, all told, cost his nonprofit $288,000.
In many ways, Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative got off easy. In October, a desktop computer containing unencrypted records on more than four million patients was stolen from Sutter Health, a nonprofit health system based in Sacramento. A rock was thrown through a window to gain access to the computer. The theft is now the subject of two class-action suits, each of which seeks $1,000 for each patient record breached.
“Breaches are going to be one of the big challenges as more physicians and hospitals adopt electronic health records,” Mr. Tripathi says. “We’re entering a brave new world.”
This going to jappen more and more. Learn how to protect you, your employees, and your company
www.legalshield.com/hub/taylor_ra
Get the Identity Theft Shield Today, for as low as $12.50 a month membership.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
When your criminal past isn't yours
Out of work two years, her unemployment benefits exhausted, in danger of losing her apartment, Casey applied for a job in the pharmacy of a Boston drugstore. She was offered $11 an hour. All she had to do was pass a background check.
It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.
There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged to Kathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger.
Kathleen Ann Casey, would-be pharmacy technician, was clean.
Story after story it tells the same message. If you don't know where your identity, it could harm you for a long time. I know this business and false information is out there. Protect yourself.
Contact me for a free workshop on Identity Theft
I can give it to you on your computer, no obligation, just information.
It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.
There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged to Kathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger.
Kathleen Ann Casey, would-be pharmacy technician, was clean.
Story after story it tells the same message. If you don't know where your identity, it could harm you for a long time. I know this business and false information is out there. Protect yourself.
Contact me for a free workshop on Identity Theft
I can give it to you on your computer, no obligation, just information.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
SPECIAL REPORT: Cancer Survivor Takes On Banks After Cruel...
SPECIAL REPORT: Cancer Survivor Takes On Banks After Cruel...
Can you even begin to imagine how much time and money this is costing this man? And it started with a technician who was analyzing his blood. People the predators are out there and this type of crime is a lot more rewarding than robbing you at gun point.
I will be happy to set up a private Identity Theft workshop for you, by using your computer to join me on a virtual meeting at no cost or obligations. Be aware, be smart and be protected.
Contact me at: rob.taylor@harvardbenefits.com or at
www.legalshield.com/hub/taylor_ra
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