ID-PROTECT.ORG» Passwords

Identity Theft – 3 Holes to Plug

bikram — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:02:37 +0000

“There is a hole in your security.”

No Way! It is not possible

You have installed the best antivirus, a root-kit scanner, and a sandbox. You even look for https and padlock before sending information on the internet, have seen even the processes to find key loggers, installed a firewall, and have done everything needed to protect your PC from outer-world infiltration. Now no one from the Internet can breach your security.

“But, have you protected your PC against breach from inside of your office and home?”

Stay with me a little longer, and I will tell you how you can protect your PC from your neighbors, and colleagues.

3 security holes to plug

Put a strong password on your system

It is not just the people on the Internet that pose threat to your identity security. It is also people around you in your office who pose threat. Have you ever thought what happens to you when you leave your desk for 10 minutes? And do you have any way to know if someone accesses your system in your absence?

The answers to both the questions are big resounding NO. And I also don’t say that you will have an idea after reading this. But, after creating a strong password and locking your system every time you leave your desk, you will succeed in keeping identity thieves away from your data.

It is in your favor to create a strong password for your computer’s login, and lock the computer whenever you are not in front of it.

Encrypted data

What kind of encryption do you use for your data stored on your system? None?

This is not surprising. Most of us do not use any encryption program to encrypt data on local computer. Even those who swear by https and padlock on the Internet do not use any data encryption on their hard disks.

Form a new habit, and start using data encryption on your PC as well. There are many free as well as paid applications available that will help you do that.

Password protection

Do you put passwords in your files? And do you have any software to password-protect your folders? If answers to these questions are no then you need to work on changing the answer.

Install software that will help you put password on the folders that have critical data, and you should also make this habit to set password to every document that has person information in it.

These are the things that you need to do to protect your identity from local thieves who can anytime have access to your PC. It is better to apply these tips then to look suspiciously at everyone who accesses your PC.

3 More Ways to Beef up Your PC Security

bikram — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:37:09 +0000

Prevention, they say, is always better than cure, and remaining prepared for the keeps post-tragedy trauma away from you. These are the things we will be talking about in this blog post.

Backup – what and how?

This suggests you do not have a backup plan in place to fight unfortunate circumstances: like your computer getting hacked or it just breaks down. What you do? You send your PC to the computer repair guy with a belief that he will not touch your data. How can you be so sure? And how do you know your data will not be lost in the process, if not stolen?

Your safety is always in your hands so be wise and create a backup of all the important files on hard disk on to an external hard disk. Make a mirror image of your hard disk on that, and delete all your critical data from your disk before sending your machine to the repair guy. You can also ask the repair guy to do that in front of you.

Weak passwords

Everyone may not know your girlfriend’s name or her nickname, but people who know you do have these information. Even hackers know that. That is why many try to get as many details about the prey as they can, which they can use to extract the password. It is called social reverse engineering.

The only way to keep yourself safe is to avoid sharing your personal information and do not keep the password that would be anybody’s guess.

Unencrypted sensitive files

Why a hacker would want to enter your computer or install a spyware or a Trojan that could open a backdoor for you? He does that because he knows all your personal information is insecure. You have not applied any encryption methodology on the files. If you are not the one who can relate to this then you do not need to worry about hackers breaking into your system. t the one who can related to this then you do not need to worry about hackers that in front of you.ri I mean it still is a threat, very much so, but you will not lose your sensitive data because of the break in.

Apply these three suggestions in your life and you will see how secure your personal data becomes.

Can Spyware and Malware Held Responsible for Identify Theft?

bikram — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:28:04 +0000

Yes they can be, or rather they are two of the most dreadful tools used to rip you off your personal details.

What is spyware?

Spyware is a program that is installed stealthily in your computer when you visit a website or download a pirated application, e-book, songs, movie, and other things. It also gets installed to your system when you download from illegal torrents or any other peer to peer (P2P) sharing services. The purpose of this program is to send your user names, passwords, personal information, and credit card information, etc., to the person who has installed spyware in your system.

This program works beneath the radar, and if you do not have adequate protection, it can cause havoc. The havoc is always an aftereffect, as you do not know about its existence when it operates. This program sends details of every key that you press.

Ok. But what is malware?

Malware is another program designed to allow a hacker entry into your system by opening different ports in your computer. It opens backdoors (not one but several) into your system, which hackers exploits to steal your precious data from your system. Hackers even use your system which they hacked using their malicious software (malware) to hack other’s system and their identity.

Malwares are little programs that come imbedded in the pirated stuffs that we download off the internet using whatever means. These stuffs are designed to take advantage of you. In other words, you are made to trade your personal details for pirated stuffs that you get for free.

Where it come from?

It would be wrong to say that these little monsters install themselves just from the websites dealing in pirated stuffs. Pornography sites also infect your system. These sites are the biggest source of spyware and malware infection.

Where is the safe heaven?

A website that has https prefix, i.e., the website that runs on secure server do not spread any such threat as these websites are constantly scanned by SSL proving company, typically VeriSign.

Create a Strong Password in 3 Easy Steps

bikram — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:34:31 +0000

A strong password is not only your first line of defense against identity thieves, but it’s also the most important tool to keep burglars away from your online profiles. We have discussed about the importance of strong password in the article titled, “Why Do You Need a Strong Password?”, in this article I am going to show you how you can create strong password in three simple steps.

How to create a strong password

Step 1: Develop a personal algorithm for your passwords. This way you will just have to remember algorithm and not the passwords for each website where you register. Suppose you have developed an algorithm that consists of

First three consonants of the website for which you are creating a password in capitals
First four letters from your name in small letters
Your year of birth
Three letters from your month of birth in reverse order in capitals
Add * (asterisk) at the beginning and # (hash) at the end

Let’s say you are setting a password for your Facebook account and your name is Michael, year of birth is 1969, and December is your month of birth. Now according to the algorithm developed in step 1 your password should be: *FCBmich69CED#. Similarly, for gmail your password will be *GMLmich69CED#, and for twitter it will be *TWTmich69CED#, so on and so forth.

Step 2: Use a mixture of capital as well as small letters along with numbers and special characters in your password.

Step 3: Keep your algorithm hidden away from public eye. Do not share it with anyone.

As long as you maintain the secrecy around your password algorithm your password will remain safe, and no matter how hard an identity thief tries he will not succeed in breaking into your account. A personal password algorithm is the best way to create one unique password for each website, which you will never forget.

Do You Know How To Remain Safe On the Internet?

bikram — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:51:03 +0000

Couple of month back I received a mail from RentACoder.com on my Hotmail account saying that the said website is offering me $100 for something that I do not remember now. I knew it was a scam to get my username and password, so I went ahead to mark it SPAM, but on the second thought, I changed my mind and decided to click on the link to see how a scam website looks.

The scam website was 100 percent identical to the homepage of RentAcoder.com, except for one thing. Instead of showing https://www.rentacoder.com, the address bar showed some other URL. This is one form of Scamming, there are many such things happening on the net. My goal in this article is to tell you how to stay safe from such scams.

How to stay away from online Identity thieves

The very first thing you should do check the https prefix to the URL, and a padlock symbol in the status bar of the browser before you provide any information.
Scammers find their gold mine in type-in traffic. Scammers have registered the wrongly spelled names of the website related to popular sites. For example: Focebook, Fecebook, Paipal, peypal, etc. Check your URL manually to avoid being duped.
You can also bookmark the websites that you visit regularly. This way you will not have to type in URL every time you visit those websites. This will minimize the chances of getting scammed of your user name and password.
You can also try Google, Bing, or Yahoo to reach to your favorite website. These search engines almost never list scamming sites, and not that on the first place.
Do not use public computer for financial transaction.
If using public computer, use virtual keyboard. This will save you from keylogger threat.
Use different passwords for different websites.
Do not enter any detail if the website looks suspicious.

These are some of the ways to keep yourself safe on the web. Do you want to know what happened to RentACoder scam? Well, I Clicked the close button and went out, couple of days back I received intimation on my Gmail account from RentACoder. According to that the threat was over.

Stay Safe From Cell Phone Identity Theft

SamElli — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:18:13 +0000

Another identity theft scam you may not have considered, is cell phone identity theft. You cell phone is a huge window into your personal life. The information your phone stores, in the wrong hands, could absolutely be used against you. That’s why, as with everything else, you should be careful about how you use your personal information. If you want to avoid having your identity stolen that is.

One of the surprisingly common ways that identity thieves operate with a cell phone, is by stealing your phone. When your phone is stolen, they can text message anybody in your address list. The usual tactic is finding your spouse, and sending you a text to ask for something as simple as your ATM pin number. The spouse assuming the text is from you, then sends the number, and combined with a stolen ATM card the thief has access to your accounts.

You can solve this problem simply by having a conversation with your spouse, and by practicing common sense. Anytime sensitive information is asked for via text, instead of just sending the information, try calling first. Make voice contact to confirm that the cell phone hasn’t been stolen.

Also, identifying important people in your life with names like, “hubby”, or labeling a family member “mom”, only clues a thief into the important people in your life. Try to use first names only. You know who everybody is, but an identity thief won’t. Not giving them any hints limits what sort of damage they can do with your contact list.

Finally, don’t store any important information in your phone, as it just can’t be adequately protected. That means don’t save passwords, account numbers, social security numbers, etc in your phone. That’s just asking for trouble, and making an identity thief’s job all the easier.

Avoid iPhone Identity Theft

SamElli — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:57:44 +0000

Not many people really think about the information stored on an old smart phone, before upgrading to a new one. Take the iPhone for example. It’s a great resource to easily store information, and make checking email, making online purchases, etc incredibly easy. The problem with that is the information that remains on the unit’s memory, long after you’ve moved on to another phone.

Any passwords that you save to your iPhone can be recovered by a skilled thief. The way that the phone’s memory works makes it almost impossible to completely erase the data on an iPhone. So just tossing that old phone into the trash is not the best strategy. Rather, you should destroy the iPhone yourself. Make sure that you carefully, and safely destroy the unit, so that no salvageable pieces are left.

A good tactic for avoiding this sort of trouble altogether is to make sure no passwords are stored in your phone. Change the settings so that you are required to enter a password every time you use your email, or an online purchasing function, etc. Sure it’s slightly less convenient, but in the long run it could save your identity. Leaving vital information like passwords in your iPhone’s memory is just asking for trouble.

You also have to consider if the unit is stolen. A thief has easy access to every function you have access to. So protect your information, put in passwords every time necessary, and don’t store too much personal information on your phone. Never save a record of your social security number, or other such information, anywhere in your phone. That’s just asking for trouble.

Don’t make it easy for a thief. Don’t save passwords, destroy your phone when you upgrade to a new one, and always guard your information carefully. That’s really the only way to stay safe, and protect your identity from being stolen.

Identity Theft Methods

SamElli — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:18:23 +0000

Understanding the common techniques that thieves use to take hold of your identity is important. With knowledge you can keep yourself safe. By knowing what to avoid, and how to handle your personal information, you lower your risk. So here are a few ways identity thieves operate.

One of the most common methods is to use your old computer against you. Many people don’t realize that even if you delete the files on your hard drive, most of the information can be recovered. So when you throw away your old computer, or donate it to someone else, most of the info is till there. That means stored information and passwords. A thief can pick these up pretty easily.

You should always destroy an old hard drive, to keep yourself completely safe. That’s really the only way to make sure the information is gone. Otherwise you run the risk of someone else using your information against you.

Another mistake many make, is to just throw away documents. Old bills, bank statements, etc. They don’t realize that these provide all the information an identity thief needs to assume your identity. Anything with your name and address needs to be shredded. So a document shredder is an important addition to every home. Or if you don’t have one, tear up the documents yourself. But make sure to make the effort, or else an ID thief could have an easy pay day at your expense.

Pay attention to what information you freely give when people are in close proximity to you. A mistake many make is filling out forms publicly, or giving out social security numbers where others can see or hear. You have to guard that information. So make sure any personal forms you’re filling out in public are covered up as you complete them. Don’t talk about your personal information when others are within earshot. You can’t know who is listening.

Keeping Safe On The Internet

SamElli — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:24:57 +0000

Being safe on the internet is easy, it just takes common sense and a little patience on your part. The techniques you can employ to keep you identity theft free while surfing the internet aren’t hard. Rather they are a set of rules you should always follow. That’s really the only effort you have to extend, so why not choose to surf safer?

One of the most common ways to be more safe, is to make sure to use an alias on most websites that require your name. Part of the reason identity theft has become so prominent, especially online, is because people give away information so freely. By using an alias to participate on social networking sites or website forums, you protect yourself that little bit more.

Make sure you run a full system scan virus check at least once a month. But beyond that it’s good to have programs like Ad-Aware which can run quick intelligent scans of your most vital systems. You should always use a quick scan before making an online purchase. This way you can make sure there isn’t any spyware on your computer, watching you type in passwords or credit card numbers.

If you’re suspicious about a link you’ve been sent in an email, try accessing the website outside of the email. If it’s an add for a sale at a site you do business with, the sale will be available from the site directly too. Try going that way, so you can ensure you’re using the real website safely, instead of typing vital info into a fake website.

Finally, open several email accounts for different uses. Have a personal email for family and friends, and avoid any emails not relating to those, as they are probably scams. Set up an email for online purchases, and communication through those means. This way you know what to look for and how to monitor that address. Use this example for all of your internet needs, and you can help keep yourself even safer on the web.

Flash Drives | How Safe Are They?

resourceful — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:07:28 +0000

Flash drives are like mini computers without a screen. I was given one as a gift back in college. When I first began using it for assignments, I kicked myself for not having invested in one earlier. They are the most convenient pieces of technology out there, and you don’t even have to own a computer to benefit from one. I took it with me from the internet café to the library, from school to my friend’s laptop, and boy did I get productive! What I didn’t realize, however, was that while it was very easy to use, it was extremely easy to lose. Which brings me to the topic in question: how safe are they?

First of all, it depends on what you use it for. I would not be surprised if the average flash drive user is like me: adding unsorted files (essays, important websites, photographs, etc.) until there is no more room. This offline data is vulnerable (especially if it references any online passwords in some obscure document that the user thought he or she could hide) if the right flash drive is not chosen. Regular flash drives are not safe; they are encrypted very rarely and are usually not protected by security software. My personal suggestion:

“Use one flash drive for your online identity, another flash drive for your offline identity, and keep them separate.”

You might be asking, “Why should I have two flash drives?” and “Why must I keep them separate?” Flash drives that protect internet passwords, like the ID Vault or Guard ID System, are important to have when protecting your online identity and should be kept separate from regular wear and tear. You plug it into the main personal computer that you use and you’re done. To answer the second question, all of your data is sensitive and if it gets dropped onto the street, anyone can plug it in and use it. They can get personal pictures and your name, and little by little reconstruct who you are. If the two flash drives are stuck together on a key chain, you might have a much bigger problem, than if they just found your personal data alone.

Now that the flash drive that protects your online passwords is the one you leave at home, what about the one that you take with you? You still have a problem if someone finds your personal data on this one, right? Not if you invest in a biometric flash drive (BFD). A BFD basically requires your fingerprint to open files on the drive. BFD’s incorporate a fingerprint scanner that acts as a passcode. If you lose it, your files are protected. If you use it, you will also have the added protection for logging onto websites.

BFDs can be used by more than one finger, but you must make sure that if it’s from someone else’s hand, they are a very trustworthy person. Two BFD examples are the Kanguru Bio Drive and JumpDrive TouchGuard. The BFD of your choice will be backed by the first flash drive (either the ID Vault or the Guard ID System), and you will be killing feeding one bird with two stones slices of bread (I am against violence, but you get the point). Just to be clear, your identity is the bird that needs two forms of help! If you’re not convinced about how unsafe a regular flash drive is, go ahead and read this BBC News article.