Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post on the ITAC blog. As always, we have compiled all the key identity theft, data breach and cyber security stories you need to kick start your week on the right foot. For this Monday, we have a number of different stories ranging from new data breach legislation to a piece about child identity theft.

Child-Identity Theft Increases
Imagine applying for that first job, that first exciting credit card, that freshman-year college loan. Now, don’t. For more young adults, plans and hopes are being dashed because they are unwitting victims of identity theft at the hands of someone they know, usually their parents. It often happens when victims are too young to do anything about it, so it’s a crime that can go undetected for years. Read the full AJC story here.

Conn. AG Wants Teachers Board to Explain Lost Data
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says the state Teachers’ Retirement Board owes its members identity theft protection and an explanation after waiting six months to inform them of a lost flash drive containing retirement data. Blumenthal said Wednesday he is urging the board to give more than 58,000 members identity theft protection for two years and more details of how the drive vanished and exactly what information it contained. Read the full AP story here.

Bill Would Target Data Breaches
Two Senate lawmakers introduced a bill last Wednesday that would require financial institutions, retailers, federal agencies and others to do more to safeguard sensitive information and to investigate security breaches. The bill offered by Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Robert Bennett, R-Utah also would require these entities to notify consumers when there is a “substantial” risk of identity theft or fraud becauase of a security breach involving their sensitive information. It would apply to retailers who take credit card information, data brokers who compile private information and government agencies that hold nonpublic personal information, according to a news release. Read the full National Journal article here.

AMR Breach Puts 79,000 Employees at Risk
In one of the largest data breaches in recent months, AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, said it’s in the process of notifying more than 79,000 current, former and retired employees that a hard drive containing their most sensitive personal information was stolen from its corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. The Associated Press reported the breach earlier this month. AMR (NYSE: AMR) officials told the AP that the purloined drive contained images of microfilm files that stored data such as employees’ names, address, birth dates, Social Security numbers and what it described as “limited” bank account information. Read the full eSecurity Planet article here.

Happy Monday!

Identity theft is a pressing issue especially now that the internet has paved the way for thieves to easily steal your personal information. By just asking you to fill in forms for membership sign-ups or for availing of other special services, enticed consumers fail to think twice and they key in numbers and other data generously. It will be too late for regret once these consumers realize that they are actually finding a way for thieves to succeed. A lot of online websites are now created to offer counter interventions against identity theft. Programs geared towards identity theft protection are now set to be availed at very low prices and even for free. Depending on your needs, these programs are established to benefit the consumers and to prevent them from becoming the next victim.

Part of these programs is the easy steps to filing charges against the thieves.

Full Article…

Robert Siciliano is a Personal Security Expert and Adviser to Intelius.com. For more information see Intelius at Criminal Check to reduce your chances of encountering a bad guy. See him discussing self defense on Youtube. (Disclosures)

Brad Arkin, Adobe’s director for product security and privacy, recently commented, “We’re in the security spotlight right now. There’s no denying that the security community is really focused on ubiquitous third-party products like ours. We’re cross-platform, on all these different kinds of devices, so yes, we’re in the spotlight.”

Adobe, in response is doing everything a responsible software developer should do.

Adobe is the same boat today that Microsoft found itself in years ago. Ground zero. Hack central. Criminal hackers love it. Adobe’s software or files are used on almost every PC and across operating all systems. Every browser requires a program to open PDFs and many websites either have links with PDFs or incorporate Flash to play video or for aesthetic reasons. According to an

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For those on the run, or for people who just want to be anonymous in a crowd, identity cloning may seem like a good idea. In a case like this, someone steals your identity for concealment, or to shield them from some reality they just don’t want to face.

Maybe they’re on the run from police or creditors. Maybe they’re in the country illegally. Maybe they’re paranoid, or just really, really private. It doesn’t matter. ID cloning is full-blown criminal identity theft, and it can hurt you badly

On the Lam

While some identity clones hide under the identity of a deceased person or a young child, they’ll often grab any ID they can to get by under the radar. Often, all it takes is a Social Security Number to build a new life around their old one…and unless something untoward happens, you might never even know. Full Article…

Identity theft is a serious crime. It may seem to be involving only monetary aspects of a person but the real essence of the crime instills damages that are very hard to deal with and cure. Reputation requires identity theft protection. A ruined named is very difficult to manage as chances of progress and trustworthiness do not come in just a snap of a finger. Anybody is subject to the threats of stealing identity. You can be the next victim and once you have realized that somebody else if taking advantage of your name, the next thing to do is follow the steps on reporting the crime.

Your credit reports are important aspects in detecting possibilities of theft. The credit reports will reveal all financial transactions which are done under your name. if you think some items are questionable and you have gathered enough proofs regarding the items, you can go straight to the police station and be able to relay the issue.

Full Article…