It’s time to start your online holiday shopping, and what could be more convenient than sitting in your favorite Wi-Fi coffee shop while you work your way through your gift list? But if you aren’t careful you could end up an online identity theft victim instead of everyone’s favorite Santa.

Fortunately, you can protect yourself from online identity theft with these four simple steps:

• Secure your Internet connection: Be sure your software firewall is on, and your file sharing is off.
• Shop on only secure sites: You can determine whether a site is secure by looking for the padlock icon in the bottom right corner of your browser page. Look for the https (instead of http) in the site’s URL; the “s” stands for secure.
• Watch for shoulder surfers: Coffee shops are often jam-packed during the holiday season, making it easy for shoulder surfers to go undetected. Stay aware of you

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TrustedID identity theft protection service just introduced a new service called Identity Threat Score, which is included in its package of services at no extra charge. While we are all at risk for identity theft, this service is designed to help users know exactly what their risk profile is, and what they can do about it.

Using another service in their identity protection package, known as Identity Scan, TrustedID reviews your credit profile, and additional public and private records and compares it to patterns of information that make people more likely to be victimized by identity theft. This new technology scans 100’s of databases and millions of records and sophisticated computer software analyzes this information for risks to your identity. T

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Parenthood is rife with worries about school grades, summer camps, chicken pox, college savings and flu vaccines. But even the best parents overlook the threat of child ID theft—and it’s the threat that could have a biggest impact on a child’s future.

At least one child of every 20 has a file with one of the major credit reporting agencies, meaning someone has used that child’s personal information to apply for credit, according to Javelin Strategy and Research. Credit

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So far, so good. I’m six months into my new LifeLock membership, and so far everything has gone just like they said it would.

I received my notice that I would no longer receive pre-approved credit offers within a few days. Hallelujah! ID thieves steal mail as one of the most common methods of ID theft, and every time I pulled a credit offer with a check out of my mailbox, I worried about whether there had been others I’d missed.

Because of the work I do, I know that a common ID theft technique is to change the victim’s address to divert mail and obtain personal and financial information. LifeLock’s TrueAddress™ monitors address changes and confirms that if my address is changed, it’s because I changed it.

I received my credit reports within just a couple weeks. We’re all s

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US and Egyptian authorities have charge almost 100 people for their involvement in a identity theft ring that has stolen money from thousands of bank accounts. The FBI has arrested 50 people in the United States and Egyptian authorities arrested 47 who are all apart of the same identity theft ring.

The identity theft ring was using email addresses to attempt to trick people into logging into fake websites giving away there private account information. This is commonly refereed to as a phishing attack. The websites often look exactly like the real site but they secretly steal your login information.

At this time we do not know how the US and Egyptian people know each other or how they are connected. Perhaps they where partners or maybe they just bought and some information from each other. Whatever the case it’s shocking that this many people could be working together for this long. T

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