This Saturday, April 20, is the Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) annual Shred Day—what they call an “identity theft, fraud prevention and educational initiative.”Why shred?We often have documents lying around that feature sensitive information sought by identity thieves and fraudsters. This personal identifying information (PII) can include your name, Social Security Number, bank account number or [...]
In trending news, Mississippi state Representative Lester Carpenter found that someone else had filed for his 2012 tax return. While the identity thief asked for Carpenter’s tax refund to be automatically deposited, he or she had provided incorrect bank account information, causing the check to be mailed to Carpenter’s home address.“Carpenter went to the Mississippi [...]
One in 10 children will become victim to child identity theft and the thieves can go unnoticed for years as children’s credit reports may not be checked until they turn 18. Many times families discover the crime when the child applies for his or her first credit card, loan or apartment and are met with [...]
Last week a group of Experian employees visited a popular Austin movie theater, the Alamo Drafthouse, to catch a private showing of “Identity Thief,” the new comedy starring Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman. It was a fun outing with our co-workers, but of course, being in the identity and data protection business, we couldn’t help [...]
This week Symantec announced their “Top 5 Security Predictions for 2013.” The company listed some interesting trends and the article definitely warrants a read-through. This list also got us thinking about our own predictions for 2013. Here are a few we see happening: Your email address and password will become more valuable to identity thieves. Think [...]
It's something you see in cartoons and science fiction movies – a character goes into a secured area and either their hand or eye is scanned to grant them access. In real life, that practice is called biometrics, or the use of personal traits such as fingerprints, hand scans, eye scans or vocal patterns to [...]
In honor of National Cyber Security Awareness Month and Protect Your Identity Week (Oct. 20–27), we’d like to share a few tips to keep you and your business safe, secure and prepared.Be smart and aware. Many people have the mindset that identity theft won’t happen to them, but it’s one of the fastest growing crimes, [...]
You’ve heard of the websites that can locate sex offenders near you. Maybe you’ve even used them to scope out your neighborhood. But are those websites giving you the full picture? What if some sex offenders are flying under the radar?According to a recently released study from Utica College, more than 16 percent of sex [...]
Hackers recently posted 6.5 million unique hashed passwords from LinkedIn, with already 200,000 of these passwords cracked. LinkedIn is a global social networking site for professionals—and it’s likely that many of the site’s users use the same password with other sites, including online retail stores, news websites and sites related to their employers.What does this [...]
The Center for Identity at the University of Texas at Austin held the first annual ID360 Conference this week. Experian was there in support of our VP of sales Marc Ostryniec, who presented on how proactive credential monitoring can reduce the risk of fraud that is an inherent problem when employees mishandle company credentials or [...]
