Don't rely on Flickr to back up your pictures

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August 5th, 2009 - Posted by Caitlin

Valleywag reports on user complaints about the reliability of Flickr's paid service. On more than one occassion, a paying Flickr user has lost thousands of photos, without warning or recourse. Deleted photos cannot be recovered under any circumstances, and apparently, Flickr's customer support has been less than helpful in resolving these situations.

Flickr is a photo-sharing site. It is not designed for storage or backup. If you're relying on Flickr or any other photo-sharing site to store your photos, you're putting them at risk. Instead, consider an affordable and reliable online backup service to store and protect your pictures, as well as your music and other documents. You can learn more about online backup by checking out our reviews and comparison chart.

No social networking for marines

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August 5th, 2009 - Posted by Caitlin

According to Wired, the U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media websites from its networks, effective immediately. According to the Marine Corps, these websites are "a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries."

The ban comes in response to a warning from U.S. Strategic Command, which has been considering banning these websites for the entire Defense Department, due to network security concerns. A Stratcom source explained, "The mechanisms for social networking were never designed for security and filtering. They make it way too easy for people with bad intentions to push malicious code to unsuspecting users."

The ban will last for one year. If a "mission critical need" can be proven a waiver will be issued. In response to the ban, Pentagon social media czar Price Floyd commented that while security is crucial, "What we can't do is let security concerns trump doing business. We have to do business… We need to be everywhere men and women in uniform are and the public is. If that's MySpace and YouTube, that's where we need to be, too."

Social media websites present security dilemmas for civilians, as well. If this is a concern for you, you may be interested in our Facebook Identity Theft Prevention Guide or our MySpace Identity Theft Prevention Guide. And, of course, you should protect your computer with Internet security software, and perhaps consider identity theft protection.

Government officials are posting Social Security numbers online

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August 4th, 2009 - Posted by Robert Siciliano

Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger

Government officials are posting our Social Security numbers on the web, but corporations are required to keep them under lock and key.

Congressman Robert Wexler was recently targeted by a Ghanaian extortionist who supposedly obtained Wexler's Social Security number, as well as his wife's, from a public record posted at The Virginia Watchdog. Betty Ostergren, founder of The Virginia Watchdog, has spent the past seven years trying to put an end to the public exposure of our Social Security numbers, which are often posted online by elected or appointed state government officials. Virginia and other states apparently want this personal information online, since they have yet to pass any laws mandating the removal of Social Security numbers.

State officials posts these records online because they are public records. This is already happening in every state. Records containing extensive personal information are available on the Internet, and the elected officials that post this information put individuals at risk by failing to remove or black out Social Security numbers and other sensitive data.

The fact that Congressman Wexler and his wife were extorted should not be the big story. The big story should be the fact that these records, with Social Security numbers exposed, are made available on the Internet, thanks to elected officials.

Betty Ostergren recently found the same documents for one major U.S. corporation and their top brass on twelve different state government websites. The same list of Social Security numbers and home addresses for the top executives appeared on government websites in in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and South Dakota. And each year that the company filed a report within those states, the same 40+ Social Security numbers showed up on the documents, which are available to anyone in the world. (North Carolina did unsuccessfully attempt to redact the numbers.) The Social Security numbers of many top executives from many corporations are available on the Internet, on public records published on state websites. And so are the Social Security numbers of plain old Joe Shmoes, too. But most of them don't realize it, and when their identities are compromised, they'll wonder how their Social Security numbers got into the wrong hands.

We live in an ignorant country, where people pay more attention to sports and entertainment than the actions of our legislators.

Go to The Virginia Watchdog to become fully informed about the identity theft crisis, which is fueled by public records. Protect yourself from new account fraud. Get a credit freeze. Go to ConsumersUnion.org and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name. This makes your Social Security number useless to a potential identity thief. And invest in identity theft protection. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses Social Security numbers on Fox News.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqoHSACQ34U[/youtube]

Robert Siciliano is CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com , an identity theft expert, professional speaker, security analyst, published author and television news correspondent. Siciliano works with Fortune 1000 companies and startups as an advisor on product launches, branding, messaging, representation, SEO and media. Siciliano's thoughts and advice on all these matters appear often in both the televised and print news media including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, Forbes and USA Today. He has 25 years of security training as a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. He is the author of two books, including The Safety Minute: Living on High Alert; How to take control of your personal security and prevent fraud. He's also partnered with Uni-Ball to help raise awareness about the growing threat of identity theft and to provide tips on how you can protect yourself.

McAfee offers back-to-school price break

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August 4th, 2009 - Posted by Kent

When I was in school, back-to-school shopping involved buying pencils, erasers, and Trapper Keepers of ever-increasing complexity. That was in the last century. Today, it's a different world, which is why McAfee wants to send us back to school with their Total Protection 2009 Internet security package. When we reviewed it here, we found it to be the best stand-alone Internet security software for the money. Their current 50%-off promotion now brings it down to $39.99, ten bucks cheaper than it was before, and the same price as the former cost-cutting champs we reviewed. The back-to-school promotion runs until September 17th, and no coupon is required. Just follow the links from our reviews, or right here in the blog. The Total Protection 2009 product offers protection against viruses, spyware, phishing, spam, and several other things that I never had to worry about with my Trapper Keeper.

New Jersey man hawks stolen domain on eBay, nets basketball player

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August 4th, 2009 - Posted by Kent

P2P.com is a website that started out in 1997, before the term P2P became known as peer-to-peer (a type of file sharing popularized by Napster). Back in 1997 it was the website of Port to Print, an online printing firm. Sometime around July 12th, 2005, the domain underwent a conversion. It was either bought from Port to Print, or the registration ran out—but someone with an eye towards the domain's potential value bought it. Suddenly, no longer the home of Port to Print, it became what's known in the business as either a placeholder domain or a domain squatter, a domain that just sits around waiting to be bought. Only, it seems, it wasn't bought. It was stolen.

Daniel Gonclaves allegedly hacked into the account of the domain holder and transfered ownership to himself. According to an AP report, that happened in May 2006. In September, LA Clippers star Mark Madsen bought it for $100,000 on eBay; that's about when the site got another makeover. On December 16th of the same year, the site assumed its current look (you can see the site here, but be warned that it will spawn a pop-up window if you try to back out of it or go to another site). To recap, it went from print business, to domain squatter, to hacker, to NBA star in ten years. Not only did the site go through four owners, the site's name went through two definitions in its lifetime. It also went from a legitimate business to a spam site designed to net unaware web surfers in a fake web directory and send them off on monetized links (this seems to have been done under Madsen's ownership).

And yes, you can add domain names to the list of dicey purchases you can make at the online auction house eBay. In fact, it may be one of the dicier things you can buy. After all, domains are entirely virtual products. Right now eBay is stocked full of Michael-Jackson-related domains.

Reportedly, this is the first time anyone's been arrested for stealing a domain (though the actual charges are: "theft by unlawful taking or deception, identity theft, and computer theft"). The big lessons here are: always make sure to renew your domain every year (or set it up for auto-renewal), and don't buy domains off of eBay. Understandably, Madsen probably thought p2p.com was a pretty good buy, even though he paid over $100k and never did much with it, except put spam there (bringing us to a third lesson: NBA stars, even in a terrible team like the LA Clippers, make way too much money).

You can register and host brand spanking new domains at any one of the web hosts we reviewed, and not worry about buying stolen property.

Congressman Robert Wexler targeted in identity theft extortion

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August 3rd, 2009 - Posted by Robert Siciliano

Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger

Sun Sentential reports that Congressman Robert Wexler, of Florida, was targeted by an extortionist who threatened to turn his Social Security number over to identity thieves. Wexler refused to give in to the extortionist's demands, and reported the plot to the Secret Service and Capitol Police. Other members of Congress were targeted, as well. The alleged extortionist has been arrested and remains in custody in Ghana.

Wexler's attorney, Pamela J. Marple, issued a statement:

"Congressman Wexler greatly appreciates the professionalism and ongoing assistance of the United States Secret Service and Capitol Police regarding a matter where he was targeted as a member of Congress and was the victim of crime involving extortion and attempted identity theft. This remains an ongoing legal matter that will be closely monitored."

The Ghanaian telephoned Wexler this month while President Barack Obama was visiting Ghana, guarded by Secret Service agents. Wexler reported the matter to the Secret Service while they were in the country, which helped the investigation. The congressman, while understandably shaken that he was being extorted, should have already known that his Social Security number is out in the wild. Our Social Security numbers are in public records, databases, file cabinets, school records and, quite possibly, for sale on the Internet.

1. Be aware that your Social Security number has already been compromised. Over the past five years, hundreds of millions of records have been stolen in major data breaches.
2. Do everything you can to prevent your own data breaches by making sure to install and update Internet security software.
3. Never use public PCs where spyware might be installed.
4. Recognize that when using wireless in a hot spot, your personal information is available for the taking.
5. Do a scan in the public records in your state to see if your Social Security number is posted anywhere.
6. Invest in identity theft protection and prevention. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk.
7. Get a credit freeze. Search "state credit freeze laws" online and lock down your credit to prevent new account fraud.

Identity theft speaker Robert Siciliano discusses Social Security numbers on Fox News.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqoHSACQ34U[/youtube]

Robert Siciliano is CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com , an identity theft expert, professional speaker, security analyst, published author and television news correspondent. Siciliano works with Fortune 1000 companies and startups as an advisor on product launches, branding, messaging, representation, SEO and media. Siciliano's thoughts and advice on all these matters appear often in both the televised and print news media including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, Forbes and USA Today. He has 25 years of security training as a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. He is the author of two books, including The Safety Minute: Living on High Alert; How to take control of your personal security and prevent fraud. He's also partnered with Uni-Ball to help raise awareness about the growing threat of identity theft and to provide tips on how you can protect yourself.

New patch fixes iPhone vulnerability

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August 3rd, 2009 - Posted by Caitlin

Last week, prominent computer-security researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner demonstrated an iPhone vulnerability that could allow a hacker to gain complete control over all iPhone functions, including making calls, visiting websites, accessing personal information on devices, and turning on the camera and microphone. The hack could be executed through a series of hundreds of invisible text messages, which would embed code into system's memory and run a malicious executable file. The user would only see a single message containing a small square. Once one phone was compromised, it could be used to send the same invisible text messages to other iPhones.

In response, Apple has released a free patch that repairs the vulnerability. To download the software update, go to iTunes, choose your device and click "Check for Update." A dialogue box should tell you that version 3.0.1 is available for your iPhone. Go ahead and click "Download and Install," and follow the commands from there.

Researchers also announced that they have found a similar vulnerability impacting Windows Mobile devices. Microsoft is currently investigating the claim.

As smartphones evolve to become more and more like personal computers, they also become more vulnerable to these types of threats. It is important to be aware of this danger. Soon enough, Internet security software for phones will be available and necessary. For now, the best way to protect your phone is to be aware of the latest threats and software upgrades and refrain from clicking on unknown links or downloads while using your smartphone.

Are the monthly fees per person or per family?

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August 3rd, 2009 - Posted by Caitlin

The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question. To maintain the integrity of the original question, we do not edit or change reader questions in any way.

Q: Are the monthly fees you cite per person or per family? The reason I ask is that I was recently told by Equifax that I was paying one monthly rate for monitoring my credit and one monthly rate for monitoring my wife's credit. Why? Because some of our credit cards were in her name, some in my name. I said two charges were outrageous and stopped their service. But now I wonder, since everyone's prices are about the same, whether another company would be any cheaper. What is your advice?

A: Since the three credit bureaus maintain credit files on an individual basis and do not merge the credit files of married couples, it is typical for credit report monitoring services to charge per person. As a married couple, some of your accounts and information are likely to overlap, but much of your credit history will differ, as will your credit scores. And if an identity thief were to open a fraudulent account in either your or your wife's name, it would only appear on one credit report. In order to get a clear picture of your current credit health and detect new account fraud, we would recommend that you and your wife each sign up for a credit monitoring service. Our credit report monitoring comparison chart should make it easy to determine which service best meets your needs.