In today’s post, Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser, Neal O’Farrell shares some very important advice on how to help the elderly, the baby boomer population, protect themselves from consumer fraud and identity theft. This is a very helpful article if you have aging parents, or if you yourself of of that AARP age! Read on!

Just last week I spoke at an identity theft seminar in the affluent Silicon Valley town of Palo Alto, CA. The event was organized by local County Supervisor Liz Kniss and the District Attorney’s office.

While anyone was welcome to join the free two-hour event, most of those who attended were seniors. And a couple of things jumped out at me that reminded me why we need to keep addressing the issue of identity theft among seniors.

The first thing I noticed was the size of the audience. The crowd looked like it topped 100, and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. That at least suggested that there is still great concern over identity theft and a need for answers.

The second thing that jumped out at me was the very visual answer to a very simple question. When asked how many in the audience had fallen victim to identity theft or fraud, more than half of the audience raised their hands.

While there are lots of statistics about the number of victims of identity theft every year, I was still surprised to find that about one-half of the people in that audience believed they had been victimized by this crime.

This got me thinking. Were they victimized because they live in a very affluent community, surrounded by other affluent communities? After all, we know that identity thieves are increasingly targeting what they refer to as “whales” – higher net worth individuals who have more access to wealth, better credit, and less time to think about protecting themselves.

Or could the answer be even simpler, that these individuals experienced a higher rate of identity theft simply because they are older. I have a feeling I may be on to something there. Financial abuse and identity theft among the elderly are on the rise, and in many cases the thieves are those the victims trust most – caregivers, relatives, and even their own children or family members.

As a result of my presentation, I thought this might be a good time to revisit some sound advice we’ve given in the past, advice you should take to heart if you have elderly relatives, friends, or neighbors:

• The best thing you can do is to be around and in touch. Scammers are less likely to focus on an elderly victim if they know a family member is close by and vigilant.

• If you know and trust their neighbors, ask them to get more involved and keep an eye open.

• If the individual is in a nursing home or retirement community, do your homework on the community, talk to the operators or managers about security, and encourage the individual to keep as little personal or financial information with them as possible.

• If the individual is in a nursing home, suggest that all mail be forwarded to you.

• Talk to them about the risks, give them a simple checklist of warning signs to watch out for, and encourage them to always call you before they buy something new, sign any legal or loan documents, or are pressured or harassed by any stranger. They should be especially careful about telephone solicitations, which often target the elderly.

• Conduct a regular home audit, making sure that all financial documentation is safely locked away, and that any computers have adequate security in place and working.

• If home help or caregivers are involved, let them know that you’re watching out for that individual and will encourage the prosecution of any crime. If you can, do a criminal background check on any caregivers, home help, or anyone else that might have regular access to the home. If you hire a home-care professional, seek out licensed employmen agencies who will perform such background checks.

• If appropriate, offer to handle all financial transactions and account management for the individual, and have them refer any financial enquiries, proposals, or problems directly to you.

• Work with their bank and credit card providers so that they are also alert to any unusual activities or transactions on their accounts.

• Offer to check their incoming mail for suspicious offers, and to check their monthly bank and credit card statements to ensure there are no fraudulent charges or suspicious payments.

• Regularly check that the individual is receiving any Social Security benefits, pension payments, and health care they’re entitled to, and that these entitlements or payments are not being diverted or misused.

• Offer to remove them from direct mailing lists to reduce the amount of junk mail they receive. Also offer to place them on national “do not call lists” to reduce the risk of unwanted telephone solicitations

• Help them make regular payments for things like utility bills so that checks are not stolen in the mail.

• Consider placing a credit freeze on their credit reports to prevent any unauthorized credit. This freeze can easily be lifted if the individual wants to take out new credit.

• Check for any financial or utility accounts that are no longer used or needed and close them if possible.

• Help them to regularly check their credit reports and if possible set them up with a credit monitoring service with alerts sent directly to you

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Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser Neal O’Farrell writes today about current efforts by the FCC to improve Internet security. But, is it going too far? Read on!

In an effort to protect the broader internet from the carelessness of a few, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), among others, is proposing a much broader adoption of something I’ve been encouraging for years – encouraging ISPs to take a greater role in protecting the Internet from the mistakes or carelessness of their own customers.

The idea is that ISPs would use a variety of tools to detect PCs that are infected with dangerous malware like bots, warn the owners of those computers about the infection, and help them clear it up. If the owner fails to clear up the infection, or becomes a repeat offender, the ultimate sanction could deny them access to the internet until they clear up their act.

It sounds draconian, and the FCC is not yet going that far. But it’s already beginning to happen and may even be a good idea. As one commentator put it, when bad guys manage to infected thousands of personal computers and get them to work together, they have in effect a highly dangerous cyber weapon capable of causing significant damage to other computers and networks.

If you’re not protecting your computer, it can easily be infected by all kinds of malware – malware that’s becoming increasingly sophisticated. When criminals are able to infect enough computers to create a botnet, or network of bot-infected computers, they can then use that network to attack web sites, hide porn, and share stolen identities. Essentially use your personal computer to run their criminal enterprise.

Which is why the Federal Communications Commission is working even harder to encourage more IPSs to get tough on careless users. And some are paying attention. A couple of years ago Comcast announced the launch of Constant Guard, a free protection service for its customers that now includes bot detection – although so far it doesn’t go as far as blocking Internet access for infected users.

But now the FCC wants all IPS to take part in this fight. In a recent speech, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski commented that “ISPs can play a significant role in the battle against botnets. They can increase customer awareness so that users can look for signs that their computers are being used as bots, detect infections in customers’ computers, notifying customers when their computers have become infected, and offer remediation support.”

He added that ISPs can and must do this in a way that does not compromise consumers’ privacy and that if other ISPs employed similar best practices, it could significantly reduce the botnet threat.

And while he didn’t go as far as suggesting more draconian measures if consumer education doesn’t work, many security experts, including myself, believe sanctions against the worst and deliberate offenders are only a matter of time.

The best way we can all avoid moving in such an extreme direction is to take greater responsibility for protecting our own little corner of cyberspace. Guard your computers well – it’s actually quite easy and you have no excuse not to.

The easiest options are to use multiple layers of malware-protecting software and most of this is now free. Keep your computer constantly patched and updated – this is also free and automated so you have to do little. And make sure you update your browser. The latest browsers have lots of great security tools built in that can offer solid defense against most of the threats that want to take over your computer.

I’ve had the honor of being a member of the FCC’s Cyber Security Working Group and I know how dedicated the FCC is to making the Internet safer for everyone. But they can’t do it alone, and they shouldn’t have to. Don’t force your ISP to get tough with you. Protect your own corner of cyberspace and we all win.

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It seems that not a day goes by when there is not a story about a major data breach in the news. And the reason for that is that in 2011, there were more than 400 major data breaches – more than 1 every day! In today’s article, Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser, Neal O’Farrell breaks down the data breach and provides some helpful tips on what you can do to protect yourself should your records be compromised.

Ever wondered why there are so many data breaches and why they keep happening. In 2011 there were more than 420 reported data breaches, or an average of more than one every day. And some of these breaches exposed millions of personal and customer records. What’s more worrying is that in at least 80% of these breaches, Social Security numbers were exposed.

A security firm called Trustwave did an investigation of more than 300 data breaches and exposed some interesting statistics and trends that might help to explain why so many businesses keep losing our personal and private information:

• Personal customer records were the target of hackers in nearly 90% of the breaches.

• Surprisingly, the food and beverage industry made up the majority of investigated breaches (44%), followed by retailers at 33%. Normally the biggest targets for data breaches are educational institutions and healthcare but in this report they only accounted for a combined 2% of investigated breaches

• Also surprising was the focus by hackers on franchised businesses, where the local business is owned by individual business owners. More than a third of the breaches happened at franchised businesses.

• When malware was used in the attacks, it was only detected by anti-malware software in just 12% of the attacks – suggesting the thieves are easily able to get past the most fundamental security defenses.

• But perhaps not that surprising is that the most common password being used by these breached organizations was “Password1”

So how are the attackers breaching security so often and so easily? The report exposed another troubling trend – in more than three quarters of the breaches investigated the access point was traced to third parties, like suppliers, partners, and technology developers. This suggests that while an organization you do business with might be doing all it can to protect your personal information, all the hard work can easily be undone when the partners they rely on are not as focused on protecting you as they should be.

And in more than 80% of the breaches investigated, the biggest weakness identified was poor passwords. Weak passwords continue to be exploited by hackers and intruders, and in spite of endless education on the subject, for some reason employees continue to choose passwords that can be guessed or cracked in seconds. If the most common password found in these attacks was Password1 (it’s a default password that employees obviously couldn’t be bothered to change), it suggests that we shouldn’t give up on educating everyone about the need for stronger and smarter passwords.

And what fixes did the report recommend? The very first recommendation of their report was better user and employee education, saying “The best intrusion detection systems are neither security experts nor expensive technology, but employees. Security awareness education for employees can often be the first line of defense.”

What else can you do?

• Use this as a reminder to beef up your passwords. Imagine how you’d feel if your weak password was cracked by hackers and used to launch a costly attack on your workplace?

• Be vigilant and careful when paying at a fast-food restaurant. Security can be a big problem here because they have limited security, a high staff turnover, and often few background checks on employees. Consider using a credit card instead of debit card when paying at one of these establishments so you’re not giving hackers access to your bank account.

• Spread the word. If you believe in security, and the role of each of us has to play in protecting our little corner of cyberspace, then share that idea with others. If each one of us were to change just a couple of our bad computing or financial habits, these crimes would be much harder to pull off.

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Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser Neal O’Farrell writes today about a dangerous new banking Trojan that has recently been making the rounds. It’s called “SpyEye” and it is causing all sorts of trouble. In today’s article, Neal provides some important tips on how to protect yourself, and your bank account from this nasty threat.

A few years ago I started warning about a dangerous new type of malware known as a banker or banking Trojan, with names like Clampi and Zeus. Banking Trojans were such a threat because they were very good at what they were designed to do – sneak on to your computer, bypass security, steal your passwords, log in to your bank accounts and empty them. Within a matter of months the FBI estimated that these Trojans had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from victims across America.

Security researchers recently discovered a very dangerous new form of this Trojan that has financial institutions very worried. The Trojan is called SpyEye and has also been around for a few years – most researchers believe SpyEye is just a reincarnation of the dreaded Zeus Trojan.

In the new version, the Trojan is able to manipulate your transactions history so that if you were to check in on your bank account and look at things like transactions and balances, everything would look OK. That’s because the Trojan is able to erase its tracks and hide any changes it makes in your account – like transferring all your money to another account. This is a very worrying development because in many cases, checking your statements is the only defense you may have against such scams.

Because the attack presents the doctored statements to your browser, it would not be able to hide the attack if you were to access your bank account from another computer or an ATM. And of course the scam would be obvious in a paper statement. But, as experts point, finding out about the attack when your statement arrives thirty days later may be way to late to stop thieves from emptying your account.

In an interview with MSNBC, Amit Klein, one of the security experts who discovered the new threat cautioned “My take is that if your computer is infected with financial malware, it’s game over anyway. My takeaway is you need to prevent getting infected with financial malware in the first place.”

Because SpyEye variants are constantly changing to evade virus detection, it can sometimes take virus companies weeks to push out a virus signature to your computer. If SpyEye manages to infect your computer during that window, you may be out of luck.

In 2005, almost half of new malicious codes were Trojans, according to Panda Security. By the end of 2010, Trojans made up more than 70% of new malware.

There are believed to be thousands of varieties of banking Trojans in circulation, and some can be purchased as complete ready-to-go kits for as little as a few hundred dollars.

Most Trojans will infect computers by using spam with infected email attachments, or by infecting web sites which in turn will infect unprotected computers visiting those sites – known as “drive by” infections.

Here are some things you can do to protect yourself:

• Scan all your personal and business computers, either using your existing anti-virus software or using any of the free scanning services listed on our web site.

• Be very careful in the web sites you visit and consider using one of the many free web site verification tools, like Trusteer, that can help identify infected web sites before you click on them.

• Layer every computer with the best virus and spyware protection available and update it constantly. But be aware that having the latest anti-malware protection in place is no guarantee that you’ll be able to prevent or detect an infection.

• Patch your computer constantly and make sure your computer settings are configured to automatically download and install patches and updates as soon as they become available.

• Avoid opening email attachments or clicking on links in emails unless you’re able to verify the email is legitimate, and be careful about visiting web sites you’re not familiar with.

• Teach all family members or employees to be especially vigilant for phishing schemes and to watch out for unusual or personalized emails with attachments or links that are not familiar.

• Set up account alerts to notify you of any transactions or changes in account balances, and work with your bank to see if there are additional layers of authentication they can use to prevent or alert you to unauthorized transfers.

• Spread your funds between a number of accounts and limit the number of users on each account.

• Change your passwords regularly, make them tough to guess, and protect them well.

• Use keylogger protection to help hide your passwords and protect them from snoops.

• Consider using just one computer for online banking, and make sure that computer is highly secure and ideally not used for email or any other Internet connected activity.

• Be vigilant when visiting your bank login page, especially for any changes to the login procedure or requests for additional information.

• Check your paper statements as soon as you get them.

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It’s that time of the year when we get to polish our crystal ball and take a look at what might happen in 2012. Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser and master predictor of all things security Neal O’Farrell, dusts off his magic wand, adjusts his turban and takes a peek into the future with his 2012 security predictions.

Christmas is a time for tradition, and in the security world one of those traditions is predicting what’s in store for us next year from hackers, scammers and all the other things that go bump on the net.

Perhaps the best way to summarize next year’s threats is more of the same, and here are just a few of my predictions:

• More friends and family fraud, as continued economic hard times force otherwise honest individuals to exploit family credit to pay bills.

• An increase in existing account fraud as financial institutions get better at preventing new account fraud and force thieves to focus on low hanging fruit.

• An increase in child identity theft as thieves become more aware of how hard it is to stop it, and a similar increase in elder financial exploitation as social services for the elderly are cut back.

• An increase in skimming, especially in supermarkets, as thieves rush to take advantage of this vulnerability before chip-and-pin is more widely adopted and makes skimming more difficult.

• A shift from street-level drug dealing to identity theft. This is a worrying trend because it could fuel the growth in identity theft for another decade. The recent Operation Rainmaker in Florida, where local drug dealers joined forces to learn about identity theft and defraud the IRS out of more than $130 million using stolen identities, is a perfect example of this trend.

• A growth in super thieves – low level thieves, like those involved in mail theft or check washing – who are never arrested or investigated, stay off law enforcement’s radar, and only become better, more sophisticated, and able to steal larger amounts without being caught. They take advantage of the fact that law enforcement has largely given up on identity theft.

• An increase in attacks against small businesses because of the wealth of identity information they possess with little protection.

• An increase in tax-related identity theft, as crooks realize how lax IRS security controls are and how easy it is to get a refund using a stolen or “deceased” identity.

• An increase in identity theft malware especially banking Trojans, keyloggers, and Android malware.

• An increase in legislation to protect consumers, and especially data breach legislation.

• Lots of opportunities for hackers to poison search results and take advantage of some big events next year, especially the 2012 Olympic Games starting in July in London, and of course the Presidential election. Both events will provide hackers and scammers with endless opportunities to trick unwary users into falling for some scam or another.

• More hactivisim, but much of it by copycat hackers rather than by the original Anonymous or Lulz crew.

• More infrastructure attacks, targeted at everything from power stations to water treatment plants. Most of the attacks will be probes to test the resilience of these systems to attack.

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In today’s article, Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser Neal O’Farrell writes about an alarming trend – identity thieves reaching out from beyond the grave to steal identities. The scariest part about this story? It’s true!

In yet another sign of the heartlessness of many identity thieves, there is a worrying growth in identity theft scams that target the sick, the terminally ill, and even the dead.

A recent case highlights just how unscrupulous many thieves can be. A couple of estate planners were recently accused of swindling more than $20 million out of a variety of insurance companies by stealing the identities of elderly and terminally ill victims. The individuals were alleged to have forged signatures and other documents that allowed them to purchase a type of death benefit in the victim’s name. When the victim passed way, the thieves were able to collect on the benefits.

The thieves were so confident they could make money from the scam; they found their victims by placing ads in local Catholic newspapers offering a $2,000 charitable gift to terminally ill patients. Once they had made the introductions and gained their trust, the thieves stole the identities of their victims and began defrauding insurers.

Not only do thieves prey on the elderly and the sick, they also prey on the dead. And stealing from the dead can be very lucrative. I wrote recently about Operation Rainmaker, where street-level drug dealers in Florida managed to swindle the IRS out of more than $130 million by filing false tax returns using the identities of dead people they found on web sites like Ancestry.com

What many people don’t know is that as soon as you die, your Social Security number becomes publicly available. It’s called the Death Master File and is a database maintained by the Social Security Administration (SSA) that includes details on most deceased Americans. And for some strange reason that includes their Social Security numbers. According to a recent statement by the SSA, a court ruling in 1980 requires them to publish these numbers, even though they admit they know it leads to identity theft.

The Death Master File is used by a variety of organizations, including financial institutions to detect fraud and even genealogists to conduct research. But there’s growing concern that it can also be abused by identity thieves. And for obvious reasons – it contains more than 87 million personal records that include names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers.

The Huffington Post recently ran a story about the tragic death of a four-year-old girl who lost a valiant battle with brain cancer. While her family was still grieving her loss, they discovered that thieves had stolen their deceased child’s identity using information from the Death Master File. Someone had simply fraudulently claimed their dead daughter as a dependent and no red flags had been raised.

And while there are calls to make this massive database of personal information off-limits to the public, few experts see any real changes any time soon. This is another of the many reasons why identity theft is such an unusual crime, and one of the few that can follow you beyond the grave.

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In today’s article, Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser Neal O’Farrell asks the question “is the economy helping cybercriminals?” Read on to find the answer!

A recent report from security firm Panda Labs found that in the last three months alone it has detected more than five million new types of malware. That works out to an average of one new type of Trojan, virus, and other malicious program discovered every 1.5 seconds.

Because of the way most anti-virus programs work, once a virus is discovered the anti-virus companies have to rush to write a piece of code or signature that must then be downloaded as quickly as possible by billions of users around the world in order to keep that particular piece of malware out.

That means that many of these viruses can easily make their way on to unprotected computers before the programmers have time to push out the updates. And with many anti-virus companies struggling to grow their profits, it could mean that as malware grows in volume and sophistication, anti-virus companies may have to spend less on updating their software.

And if you don’t believe in such perfect storms, take a close look at the identity theft wars. As identity theft continues to grow, and become more sophisticated, cash strapped police departments no longer have the resources to investigate these crimes. Which only encourages and emboldens more thieves.

The Panda Labs report seems to support this notion. The most powerful and dangerous type of malware, and the type most favored by organized crime for its ability to steal passwords and break into bank accounts, is the Trojan. And according to Panda three out of every 4 new types of malware discovered in the last three months was a Trojan.

Which probably explains why Trojans were responsible for the majority (63%) of infections in the last three months. Trojans are very efficient bank robbers, and the payoff can be enormous. Two cybercrooks from the Ukraine were just sent to prison in the United Kingdom after they were convicted of using exactly this type of malware to steal more than $4 million from bank accounts in just six months.

On a related note, the Panda Labs report also found that the countries with the worst infection rates were China, Taiwan, and Russia. In China, for example, it’s believed that more than half of all PCs are infected by malware.

And traditional attacks like phishing are not going away. Within days of a warning by the American Bankers Association of an unexplained spike in phishing attacks, security researchers had identified a new type of phishing attack that looks like it comes from a well-known bank and offering recipients $35 to complete an online survey.

According to security firm Sophos, the email asked for so much highly confidential information it should be a warning sign. According to Sophos, the email questionnaire asked for:

• Social Security Number
• Card number
• Card expiration
• CVV
• ATM PIN
• First, Middle and Last name
• Email (ironically they mailed you the form)
• Address
• Mother’s maiden name
• Place of birth
• Birthday

And an increasingly common way to spread phishing emails and infect users with this kind of malware is trusty old spam. The irony is that much of the spam in circulation today comes from the computers of innocent users. Spammers use botnets to infect unprotected computers and use them to relay spam to other users. And unfortunately, it appears that the United States still holds the top spot when it comes to relaying spam.

The bottom line? The easiest way to lose a battle is to just walk off the battlefield. As many companies and industries struggle just to survive, they’re cutting back on security. According to this year’s annual Global Information Security Survey, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, nearly 10,000 executives around the world were asked about their plans to make security a priority. Sadly just 11% said that they planned to make data protection a top priority.

Cyber-crooks are taking full advantage. Not only are they developing even more sophisticated malware, they’re deliberately overloading businesses and consumers with so many attacks, something has to give.

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Intersections’ Consumer Security Adviser Neal O’Farrell shares some security insights into the popular Internet phone service,Skype. Let the caller beware!

If, like me, you’re one of the millions of people who use Skype to make phone and video calls, you might want to be aware of some serious security issues that are emerging.

Researchers at universities in New York, France, and Germany plan to publish a paper called “I Know Where You Are and What You Are Sharing,” at a major internet conference in Berlin next month. The paper promises to outline what many experts believe are major flaws in Skype that could be downright creepy.

The authors claim that the privacy weaknesses they are found are so easy to exploit, a sophisticated high school-age hacker would likely be capable of executing similar attacks.

Here’s just an example of some of those risks:

• When person A calls person B using VoIP, person A is able to determine person B’s IP address, and perhaps even their location and the name of their ISP.

• Attackers can get this information by calling a person and hanging up quickly so the recipient of the call will never even know – there’s no ringing or pop-up window.

• An attacker can make some of these attacks even when they’re not on the other user’s contact list and even when they’ve been blocked from that user’s list.

• By repeating some of the attacks on an hourly basis, the attacker can track the locations and movements of any Skype user over weeks or even months, without the user having any idea that he or she is being tracked.

• Marketers can easily link to information such as name, age, address, profession and employer from social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn in order to inexpensively build profiles on a single tracked target or a database of hundreds of thousands.

In one demonstration, the researchers tracked the Skype accounts of about 20 volunteers as well as 10,000 random users over a two-week period and were able to construct a detailed account of a user’s daily activities even if the user had not turned on Skype for 72 hours.

According to their press release “In one example, they accurately tracked one volunteer researcher from his visit at a New York university to a vacation in Chicago, a return to a New York university, lodging in Brooklyn, then to his home in France. ‘If we had followed the mobility of the Facebook friends of this user as well, we likely would have determined who he was visiting and when.’”

The researchers also calculated that it would cost a marketing company just $500 per week to create a database capable of tracking 10,000 Skype users.

Why target Skype? The very same reason hackers have relentlessly targeted Facebook and other social networking sites – because it’s where the crowds are. Skype has more than 500 million registered users and around 170 million active monthly users who use it to make phone and video calls, send text messages, and even use it for corporate video conferencing.

And apparently it’s not just Skype that’s vulnerable but many other VOIP services. The authors of the report claim that “These findings have real security implications for the hundreds of millions of people around the world who use VoIP or P2P file-sharing services. A hacker anywhere in the world could easily track the whereabouts and file-sharing habits of a Skype user – from private citizens to celebrities and politicians – and use the information for purposes of stalking, blackmail or fraud.”

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In a recent report by the firm ID Analytics, more than 140,000 children across the United States were found to have been victims of child identity theft. The report supported other studies that have found the same troubling trend, as well as a growing awareness in the cybercrime community of the value of child identities and the ease with which they can be compromised.Today, the Daily Shield welcomes Steve Schwartz, Intersections’ Executive Vice President, Consumer Services. In today’s video presentation, Steve shares some thoughts on how parents can help protect their children from identity theft. It starts with parents understanding how and why their child’s personal information is used by schools, at the doctors office, etc.

Learn more about the growing problem of child identity theft and what you can do about it.

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In today’s post, Neal O’Farrell talks about the importance of keeping on top of your own personal security. And there is no better time to do that than in October, which is National Cyber Security Awareness Month.

It’s October again and you know what that means. No, not just Halloween, although some of the stuff out there is beginning to get scary. It’s also National Cyber Security Awareness Month and a great time for you to review your security, take a close look at your personal habits, and make some of those changes you might have been putting off.

October should be “take another look” month because it’s a great reminder for you to take another look at some of the stuff you might be taking for granted.

Take another look at Facebook

• Have you changed your password recently? If not, do it now.

• Have you removed any personal information that might help a thief learn more about your background, like where you grew up, went to school, date of birth etc.?

• Have you hidden your mobile phone number on your Facebook page? Your bank may use that number to send you alerts and you don’t want thieves intercepting those alerts.

• Have you revisited your privacy settings lately? Because Facebook changes so much, you should check your settings regularly to make sure they’re still doing what you expect them to. Network World has a great slideshow entitled “Facebook Privacy: 11 settings to revisit now.”

Take another look at your computer and device security

• When was the last time you updated your anti-virus software, and is it set to automatically update?

• Have you checked that your anti-virus program is actually in place and turned on? Make sure that it wasn’t disabled accidently by another user or family member, or even by malware.

• Are you protecting valuable information on your computer or laptop with encryption? It’s a great defense against theft and hackers.

• Have you removed any apps from your phone and tablet that you don’t really need?

• Have you installed security software in your smartphone or tablet? Don’t forget that these devices can be just as vulnerable as your computers.

Take another look at your credit reports

• When was the last time you checked your credit reports? If it’s been more than three months, it might be time to check them again. Check your reports free at www.annualcreditreport.com.

• Are you using IDENTITY GUARD®? IDENTITY GUARD® provides one of the most comprehensive collections of security tools to protect your identity from all kinds of attacks and it works best if you take advantage of all its great features.

Take another look at your browser

• Have you updated it lately or set it to automatically update?

• Have you looked at the security of add-ons and extensions to your browser, and uninstalled extensions you don’t need?

• Have you thought about switching or upgrading to Internet Explorer 9 or IE 9? It has a host of new security features that can provide almost as much protection as desktop security software.

Take another look at your kids

• Are they on Facebook? If they are, have you talked to them about dangers and precautions?

• Have you created your own Facebook page so you can friend your kids and keep an eye on them?

• Have you set rules for what they can’t say and send on their phones and computers?

• Have you moved family computers to a family area – meaning no computers where you can’t see them?

Take another look at your passwords

• Have you changed the most important ones lately, like bank accounts, email, and Facebook?

• Have you moved from passwords to passphrases, to make it easier to create and remember complex passwords?

• Have you started using a password manager to keep all those passwords in a safe place?

• Have you talked to your kids or employees about changing and protecting their passwords?

Take another look at your bank accounts:

• Do you have a password management system, like ID Vault® or an anti-keylogger such as PRIVACYPROTECT®, on your computer to protect your bank logins and passwords from thieves?

• Have you opted for e-statements instead of paper statements, to protect your statements from being intercepted in the mail?

• Have you set up account alerts so that your bank or credit union can immediately notify you of any payments, transfers, or withdrawals?

• Have you changed your bank account password recently?

• Have you checked your statements for any unusual transactions?

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