Posts Tagged ‘LifeLock’

Identity theft protection

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Consumer education key to cybercrime war

Is it better to try to chase down cybercriminals, or educate computer users? That’s the ongoing debate among security experts.

On one hand, there have been some huge victories recently in the battle against the bad guys. This week, three men were arrested in connection with a creating a “botnet” that infected an estimated 13 million computers from 190 countries and stole personal and financial information.

In 2008, the alleged mastermind of the largest cybercrimes in history was arrested. Albert Gonzalez is responsible for the greatest data breaches in history, including Heartland Payment Systems, TJX, Hannaford Brothers, 7-Eleven, Citibank, J.C. Penney, and Dave and Buster’s, according to his indictments.

Gonzalez also supervised an online forum in which more than 160 million credit cards, birth certificates, Social Security cards, PIN numbers and computer login information was exchanged.

So, the good guys must be winning the war, right? Probably not. (more…)

LifeLock Reviews

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

LifeLock and Life Quotes team up to protect consumers and help them save money

LifeLock has partnered with Life Quotes to bring more consumers an opportunity for more complete identity theft protection to safeguard their personal finances and their personally identifying information.

It is a perfectly logical marriage of the leaders in their respective industries. LifeLock has long been considered the industry leader in proactive identity theft protection services, and Life Quotes was the first company to provide consumers with comprehensive insurance comparison services.

The collaboration also joins two companies committed to serving consumers looking for the best value in the products that protect their families and finances. That mission has become doubly important at a time when so many families are affected by the economic downturn.

“Through this partnership with LifeLock, we hope to provide our users with a necessary tool for helping to protect against identity theft. Just as life insurance and other forms of insurance are important protection measures, an identity theft service is crucial to keeping a stronger hold on finances.” (more…)

LifeLock Command Center: Personal review

Monday, December 14th, 2009

I just recently upgraded my LifeLock membership to include their new LifeLock Command Center™. I felt good about the services I was already getting from LifeLock, but because I know so many ID theft horror stories—some of them firsthand—I decided to pony up the extra $4 a month for the additional services available with Command Center™.

I’m impressed. Less than 48 hours after my upgrade I received extensive Command Center™reports from LifeLock that summarize the findings of all the efforts they’ve taken to protect me. (more…)

LifeLock Command Center raises the bar

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

commandcenterLifeLock’s new Command Center service provides an additional level of ID theft protection that’s very good news for their nearly 1.5 million current members and for new LifeLock members.

For current members, LifeLock Command Center is an optional add-on to the already extensive steps LifeLock has been providing. New enrollees can choose between LifeLock’s existing, industry leading suite of service and LifeLock’s Command. (more…)

Gifts for the hard-to-buy-for

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Shopping for the kids on your list is definitely more fun, but you can’t put it off any longer: it’s time to figure out what to buy for all those hard-to-buy-for people on your holiday shopping list. Well, lucky you, I have some tips on what to buy—and perhaps more importantly—what not to buy.

I know that it’s tempting to give up and resort to gag gifts after several years of buying bad gifts despite your good intentions. Resist. Let’s start there with the list of what not to buy for hard-to-buy-for people:

Do not buy

  • Wind-up boxing nuns,
  • Racing grandma and grandpa,
  • Reindeer that poop candy, or
  • Singing bass plaque.
  • Do not buy gift certificates for elderly relatives; they don’t need anything from the mall, don’t want to go shopping, don’t have anyplace to put it and really shouldn’t be driving anyhow.

The list of what to buy for hard-to-buy-for people is shorter.

LifeLock reviews: My firsthand account

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

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 supposed to review our credit reports annually, and with LifeLock, it gets done. Only 36% of Americans actually follow that advice, and it’s a relief to be among the 64% who do. (more…)

LifeLock only ID theft service with “A+” from BBB

Friday, June 26th, 2009

The most important time to check out a company on the Better Business Bureau’s website might be when you’re shopping for an ID theft protection service. After all, whichever company you choose, you’re going to have to give them a whole lot of personal and financial information. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of ID theft companies out there. But, you’ve come to the right place, because I’ve made your life a lot easier by doing a quick BBB check on the 12 most prominent ID theft service companies as identified by the Consumer Federation of America.

Here’s what I found: LifeLock is the only of the 12 companies to receive an A+ ranking by the Better Business Bureau. (more…)

LifeLock review: Two accused of stealing identities to collect life insurance

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

Two women in Los Angeles have been arrested and charged with engaging in “Arsenic and Old Lace”-like crimes. Well maybe that’s a stretch, considering these women might not have killed actual people, and the dotty old aunts in the movie weren’t collecting on fraudulent insurance policies. (more…)

Sign up for LifeLock and you’re automatically entered in the Slam Dunk Sweepstakes

Monday, March 16th, 2009

If you’re a college hoops fan, you’re going to love the LifeLock Slam Dunk Sweepstakes! (more…)

Data breach storm raging; number of victims unknown

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Last year there were 656 reported data breaches, and—sorry to have to say it again–2009 is looking even grimmer.

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse lists only 60 reported data breaches so far this year, or an average of roughly one a day. But that relatively low incident rate belies a more sinister trend: 22 of those data breaches affected an unknown number of people.

The greatest threat to consumers’ identities is the Heartland Payment Systems hacking that first made news in January. Though the number of individual credit card account affected remains a mystery, it is known that Heartland processed roughly 100 million transactions a month. Speculation is that the total will be greater than the TJX data breach in which more than 100 million accounts were compromised.

Also on the list of unknowns are some potentially massive breaches, if not in terms of the number of records exposed, definitely in the level of identity theft hazard because of the nature or extent of information lost or stolen. (more…)