LifeLock reviews

LifeLock Command Center protects more than my identity

I’ve been a LifeLock member for almost three years now. I’ve always been satisfied with their service and felt like I received effective identity theft protection at a reasonable price, and felt more secure for having it.

I upgraded my LifeLock membership to Command Center recently, and feel better than ever, especially because my Command Center membership provides me with a service I never expected to receive from an identity theft protection company: a list of sex offenders in my neighborhood.

No other crime frightens women as rape does. I doubt there is a woman in America who does not know a rape survivor, or someone who was molested as a child. An estimated 1 in 6 women has been raped, and another woman in America is raped every two minute. As parents, most of us believe we would kill to protect our children, yet an estimated 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 7 boys is molested. Read More »

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Data breach

Data breach at AvMed makes three health insurer data breaches in three months

If the question is when will health care insurers begin protecting their customers’ identities, health information and financial information, in light of the most recent insurer data breach, the answer has to be “when pigs fly.”

AvMed began sending out notifications this week of a December 11, 2008 data breach that occurred when two laptops were stolen from a conference room in the Gainesville, Florida company headquarters. The data breach places 200,000 current and former subscribers at risk because their names, addresses and health information were all stored on the laptops.

Nearly one-third of the subscribers are at a particularly high risk of identity theft because their information was stored on a laptop without proper protect, according to a statement on the company’s website. Presumably, that means the laptop was not password protected, and/or the data was not encrypted.

The data breach also exposed extensive information on another 128,000 former subscribers dating as far back as 2003. Read More »

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Data breach

Non-profit agency increases identity theft risks by mailing tax forms to wrong property owners

It happens every tax season. W2s or 1099s are mailed out with Social Security numbers or tax ID numbers visible through the envelopes window. Or, they are printed on mailing labels and slapped on the outside of the envelopes along with names and addresses. In this data breach, they were mailed out to the wrong recipients, placing the intended recipients in grave danger of identity theft.

The Ozarks Area Community Action Corporation (OACAC) data breach occurred because of an error when they mailed out 1099 tax forms to area landlords. Only half of the roughly 500 landlords who provided subsidized housing to low-income residents received their 1099 forms last month. However, the other half of the landlords received two 1099 forms—their own and, as a bonus—a second form for one of the other landlords that work with the OACAC of Springfield, Missouri. Read More »

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Identity theft protection

Prevent identity theft by shredding unnecessary documents

Tax time is the perfect time to clean out old files or set up a new file system. But where do you start? And what do you shred to prevent identity theft?

You should shred any unneeded documents or mail that has your personal information on it, and that doesn’t mean just documents that have your Social Security numbers on it. Even junk mail has your name and address on it, and that’s a good start for identity theft. You don’t have to shred the entire catalog or sales ad, just the page with your information on it.

If you still receive your bank statements by mail, shred them after you’ve reviewed them. For identity theft prevention, though, it’s safer to receive your bank statements via email or by viewing your transactions. There’s no reason at all to receive cancelled checks in the mail, either; they’re available online, too.

The same goes for credit card statements. Review them for errors or suspicious charges that may indicate you are already an identity theft victim. The better way to prevent identity theft, though, is to receive your statements online. Read More »

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LifeLock Review

Consumer review of LifeLock’s Command Center™

I’ve been a LifeLock member for just over two years, and have always been happy with their service. But I recently decided to add LifeLock Command Center™–their new tier of ID theft services—to my membership. I know enough about ID theft to know that no one is ever completely protected, but I felt pretty safe even before the upgrade.

Since upgrading I feel like I’m as well protected from ID theft as it’s possible to be. I’m still covered by LifeLock’s original eRecon™, WalletLock™ and TrueAddress™. And LifeLock submitted the requests so I actually get my annual credit report and I don’t receive pre-approved credit offers in the mail anymore—things I should have been doing for myself but never did.

LifeLock Command Center™ drills a little deeper, though. With the new services, LifeLock proactively mines for my personal and financial information, to make sure all is as it should be, and no one but me is using it.

What I find most assuring about the new Command Center™ services, though, is that I get the reports from all their searches. In fact, I got all the reports within 48 hours of enrolling.

How LifeLock Command Center™ works
Read More »

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Data Breach

2009 Identity Theft Resource Center Breach Report

The Identity Theft Resource Center’s numbers on last years’ data breaches are out, but despite some figures that are seemingly good news, the overall picture is muddled if not outright bleak.

Nearly 500 data breaches were reported last year – a 25% decrease from 2008. That’s the first decrease in reported data breaches since the ITRC began tracking data breaches in 2005. However, more than 220 million records were reported as lost or compromised, according to the 2009 ITRC Data Breach Report – a 630% increase from the 35 million reported in 2008.

Further clouding the question of whether data security is improving or worsening is that only two data breaches were responsible for nearly 96% of all reported lost or compromised records last year: Heartland Payment Systems and the National Archive and Records Administration (NARA). Read More »

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Family ID theft protection

blacksheepThe holiday season brings families and friends together. It’s a blessing for some, but for others … not so much. These are the families whose relatives and friends include at least one drug addict, alcoholic, convict, compulsive shopper or gambler or a get-rich-quick scammer. In other words, these are the families who need to worry about ID theft.

Few ID theft victims can identify the culprit, but among those who can, 50% point to a friend, family member or in-home employee, according to a study by Javelin Strategy and Research. Read More »

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Data breach Hall of Shame, 2009

This is the time of year when all the Top 10, Best of, and Worst of lists come out. And just for the folks who worry about data breaches, information security, identity theft and institutional stupidity, ComputerWorld has rolled out their 2009 Data Breach Hall of Shame.

In no particular order–but each special in its own way–here are five of the data breaches ComputerWorld deems most egregious:

Transportation Security Administration (TSA), for posting highly guarded secrets of airport security and screening procedures on the Internet. Want information on how to sneak explosives onto a plane? It’s in there along with a lot of other terrorist and nutjob-friendly information.

Heartland Payment Systems, for the sheer magnitude of the breach. The latest estimate is that data from 130 million credit and debit cards was stolen; current US population is roughly 305 million, including children.

Health Net, for remaining hush-hush for six months about the loss of an hard drive holding names, addresses, Social Security numbers as well as financial and medical information on roughly 1.5 million patients.

U.S. GPO, because some illiterate nitwit misread the label on a document detailing hundreds of civilian nuclear sites. As a result what actually read as “Highly Confidential Safeguards Sensitive” was misinterpreted as “Post to Internet for All to See.”

RockYou Inc, for serving up 32.6 million unencrypted social networking (Facebook, etc.) passwords to a hacker this week. This one should definitely be filed under the heading of institutional stupidity.

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Notre Dame data breach; ID theft risk for 24,000 employees

A data breach is never a good thing, but when the data breach isn’t discovered for three years, and then those responsible wait two months before notifying those affected and at risk of ID theft … Well, 24,000 University of Notre Dame employees are confronting that situation.

Files containing the employees’ names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and zip codes were posted on the Internet on a publicly accessible university website from August 2006 until October of this year when they were discovered. Social Security numbers are the most valuable piece of personal information for ID theft, and when combined with names and birthdates, ID theft is easily perpetrated.

The files were removed after their discovery in October, but university officials waited until November 20 to notify employees affected by the data breach, including student workers and a “large number” of temporary and on-call employees.

Consumers whose information is compromised in a data breach have a one in five chance of becoming ID theft victims within the next 12 months, according to analysis by Javelin Strategy and Research, an independent financial services research firm. The study results were released on November 20, the same day Notre Dame mailed the data breach notification letters. Read More »

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ID theft risk for BlueCross BlueShield members after data breach

Members will be receiving mail from BlueCross BlueShield any day now, but it won’t be Christmas cards. Instead, they’ll be getting letters warning them that they are at a heightened risk from ID theft because their personal, financial and even medical information may be among the millions of records missing after 57 computer hard drives were stolen from a Chattanooga storage.

Members who called BlueCross BlueShield to discuss eligibility or coordination of care were likely recorded on the stolen hard drives. All members would have had names and benefits ID numbers on the recordings, and some would also have Social Security numbers, birth dates and possibly diagnoses or diagnostic codes.

The information was not encrypted, according to BlueCross BlueShield officials. Those whose Social Security numbers and birth dates were recorded are at the greatest risk of ID theft. BlueCross BlueShield has said they’ll offer free credit monitoring services to those members. Read More »

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