Internet Crime Up 22%!

you are the water buffalo in this scenario (J took this pic. Nice, right?)

A scary report out this month from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)  regarding cyber crime.

Especially scary because it details a  high rate of cyber-crime in the Washington DC Metro Area.

The IC3 is an organization put together by the FBI in conjunction with the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.  I mentioned their list of 17 identity theft prevention tips in my hardening your passwords post.

According to the report, Maryland ranks 19th and Virginia 28th in the number of perps per capita!

Complaints to the IC3 increased 22% last year and the average amount of money lost per complaint jumped from $265K in 2008 to $560K.

The Top Three Crimes:

• 20% non-delivery of goods or services.
• 14% identity theft.
• 10% credit card fraud.

If you haven't done so already, please plan on carving out some time to protect yourself.

Review the four post series:
Protecting Your Identity
Stop Credit Solicitations
Freezing Your Credit
Hardening Your Passwords

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Harden Your Passwords

Today's post is all about passwords and it's my fourth in a series of four about DIY identity protection.

In the first post of the series, Protecting Your Personal Information on the Internet, research revealed that most peoples' passwords were extremely easy to hack.

Well, last December, 32 million passwords belonging to a company called Rockyou were breached by a benevolent hacker who turned the passwords over for study.

A firm named Imperva  conducted research on the stolen passwords and found, "Nearly 50% of users used names, slang words, dictionary words or trivial passwords (consecutive digits, adjacent keyboard keys, and so on). The most common password among Rockyou.com account owners is '123456'."

According to that same study, a hacker with a decent DSL connection and a list of the top 5000 passwords (the top 20 of which are pictured below) could "gain access to one new account every second" and take "less than 17 minutes to compromise 1000 accounts."

Freeze Your Credit So Bad People Can't Get It (rhymes)!

Did you know that, as of January 2008, if you're a Maryland resident, you can freeze your credit report with each agency for 5 bucks a pop and as of January 2010 you can do this on-line?

Freezing your credit report means that no one can open up a new line of credit in your name.  So even if someone were to steal your identity they wouldn’t be able to use the information to get lots of shiny new credit cards.

Stop Credit Solicitations From Coming In The Mail Where The Bad People Can Steal Them!

Do you think that tearing up your credit card solicitations is overkill?

Don’t think a person could really get a credit card in your name if they dug through your mail or trash, pulled out a direct mail credit solicitation, added a different address and sent it in?

Well you’d be wrong.  That’s exactly what can happen as reported by MSNBC.

Protecting Your Personal Information on the Internet

Do you continue to hear the stories about passwords and accounts being hacked, people being scammed on-line and companies "losing" their customers' information?  Does it make you nervous?

The on-line world, much like the real world, is both wild and wonderful. There are positive elements and seriously creepy elements.

This is the first in what I think will be a four post series on protecting yourself and your family on the web.

To start us off I’m posting a terrific, albeit scary, MSNBC article about how easy it is to gather and then use your personal information from Facebook and other sites where bits of your identity can be viewed by any maniac with a computer.

From the story, "Using only one friend’s name and place of employment, he found her blog and résumé. That provided a font of information on her grandparents, pets, hometown and more. He then visited her bank’s Web site...."  I'll have tips for you at the end.