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Actions Against Cybercriminals Heating Up

The web is a dangerous place for the uninformed and unprotected. Make sure you are trained and aware. Did you know that there have been several major crime busts in the war against cybercriminals recently?

Indeed, a new quarterly report from McAfee Labs shows some eye-opening statistics about actions taken recently against cybercriminals, including the following incidents: Read More

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Free WiFi At Disney Hotels, But Less-Than-Magical Online Privacy Issues Remain

When Disney executives polled more than 10,000 hotel guests about which amenities they would most like to see added to all Disney hotels, free WiFi connectivity topped guests’ wishlists.

So crews rewired the resort’s hotels — including the cabins in Disney’s Fort Wilderness campground — and completed the work last month. While it may seem like a magical perk to hotel guests, real privacy dangers lurk in the background. Read More

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Hackers Breach Visa, Mastercard Processor; 50,000 Cards Compromised

Hackers have broken into an Atlanta-based payments processor, Global Payments, Inc, potentially accessing more than 50,000 Visa or Mastercard accounts between January 21 and February 25.

The extent of the breaches are still unknown, and Global Payments didn’t disclose what type of data had been accessed.

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Do You Know Your Rights If Your Identity Is Stolen?

Kudos to Time magazine for explaining how to correct the multiple layers and headaches involved with identity theft fraud. Read More

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What is RFID and is it Safe?

A great deal of public discussion is currently going on regarding credit cards which have RFID technology. Many people don’t know what it is, how it works, or what it is for.  Find out about this technology. Read More

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Federal Prosecutor: Credit Fraud Suspect Has ‘Insatiable Hunger for Other People’s Money’

A 30-year-old man was sentenced last week to nearly 18 years in prison on fraud charges.

Although convicted of mail fraud, authorities believe he masterminded a scheme to open nearly 600 fraudulent bank accounts and bilk 22 major banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Read More

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Online Retailer Zappos Hacked; Customers Urged to Change Passwords and Avoid Phishing Scams

Zappos.com, the online shoe-shopping favorite that is owned by Amazon, has suffered a major data breach. Read More

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Indiana Launches Free Identity Theft Prevention Toolkit

The state of Indiana has launched an identity theft prevention toolkit in an effort to aid Hoosiers in protecting themselves against identity theft through education, detection practices, and corrective procedures.

Identity theft starts with the misuse of your personally identifying information such as your name and Social Security number, credit card numbers, or other financial account information. Read More

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From Black Friday to Cyber Monday: 5 Tips to Avoid Online Credit Fraud

Want to score some hot deals this Black Friday? Sure you do, but what steps are you taking to make sure you don’t also score the attention of hackers and other cyber-thieves? Implement these five tips to ensure smooth and safe online shopping:

  1. Use a personal VPN. Having your transactions encrypted with a personal VPN like PRIVATE WiFi is the most recommended way to surf online in wireless hotspots. So if you plan to score deals while in a public wifi environment — say, while waiting for your flight at the airport or just hanging out at your favorite coffee shop — use a personal VPN to prevent hackers from sniffing your sensitive financial data.

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Ask the Expert: Is ‘Anonymous Data’ An Illusion, Or Am I Always Safe Using My Credit Cards?

In our latest “Ask the Expert” series, CEO Kent Lawson discusses the idea behind anonymizing your data. This is in light of last week’s article detailing the privacy implications of Visa and MasterCard’s new campaign to sell consumer information they collect to online advertisers. While it theoretically makes it impossible to match any record with the person whose action it records, the anonymization process is an illusion. Why? Anonymization doesn’t work unless you remove so much information that the data becomes almost useless. Click the headline above to read some examples of this, and also to learn how to better protect your privacy. Read More

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