This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube interview segment titled "Intelius Identity Theft & Uniball Anti-Check Washing 207 Gel Pens Discuss Identity Theft Prevention" (created 2009-09-01). It features host Danny Fontana on his finance show speaking with Robert Siciliano, an identity-theft expert associated with Intelius/IntelliAssist. The conversation covers a large data breach affecting ~130 million credit card records, risks of identity theft for college students, a Uniball study on campus ID theft and check-washing, and prevention tips (identity-protection services, monitoring statements, shredding documents, locking dorms, and using pens that prevent check-washing).
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Federal authorities recently stopped the group before they were able to steal 130 million credit card numbers, and that got me to thinking, with all of the information your college student has to submit on campus, are you at risk of identity theft as a result? The answer could scare you, folks. Keep it here. Danny Fonziano on Finance starts right now. Okay, today's guest is Robert Siciliano. He's an identity theft expert with Intelius. You'll recognize him from his appearances on just about every radio and TV show There is, so he must be saying something right. Welcome, Robert, back. But first, I want you to know there's 130 million names that were potentially stolen. Alarms should go off, folks, from credit card companies. And we're going to ask Robert about that now. Robert, welcome back to Danny Fontana on Finance.
Howdy!
How you doing?
Excellent, thank you.
Okay, first of all, how in the world did a guy steal 130 million names?
They— well, he and his accomplices, Russian organized criminal gangsters, They seek out unprotected networks and install sniffer programs on these unprotected networks. This is malware, malicious software that records usernames and passwords and allows the criminal hacker remote control access to those servers.
Okay, so how can people prevent this from happening?
Well, there is a couple things that you can and should do. For one, invest in identity theft protection. It's not enough to just simply be out there on the wild, wild web, running naked, not having any protection. And you also have to pay close attention to your credit card statements every single month, paying close attention to every single charge and refuting unauthorized charges every single month.
Okay, now you said buy some insurance. From whom?
Well, IntelliSys is a great service. They basically will scan the net 24 hours a day looking for your data out there informing you of it and helping you lock down any type of identity theft, you know, breach when it occurs.
Okay, IntelliAssist is the company you work for, obviously?
Correct.
Okay, Robert Siciliano is my guest. We're going to figure out— now here's— there's a danger in this, folks, for your kids going to college, and we're going to figure out now how you can prevent that from happening when we come back on Danny Fontana on Finance. And we're back. I'm speaking with identity theft expert Robert Siciliano from Intelius. Now folks, he just completed a study for Uniball, you know, the pen people, on college ID theft, and I wanted to ask about that, Robert. First of all, got all these kids going to college, they all got credit cards, they're prime for this, aren't they?
They really are. You know, ages 18 to 24, studies show that as much as 30% of identity theft occurs to those under the age of 30. This is a a group that is ripe for the taking.
Okay, so how in the world— parents have got to be concerned about this. Their kids are going off to college for the first time right now as we speak. How can parents protect their kids from this kind of identity theft?
Well, you know, our study showed that, uh, most, almost 80% of parents are actually sitting their kids down and they're talking to them about, you know, identity theft protection, about locking their dorms, about doing all the necessary things like shredding data. And we're finding that less than 50% are actually shredding their information. You know, about half are actually locking their dorms. And so here you have, you know, an entire demographic that while they're being schooled on the issue, they're not paying enough attention. We also found that less than 10% are actually using a— are concerned about check fraud. And check fraud is a $100 million problem. Problem every year. So it's important that, you know, students, they, they do what's necessary to protect themselves by, you know, shredding data, locking down their identity. And whenever you are going to, you know, write out a check or an important document, to use a pen that prevents check washing, right? A Uniball gel pen prevents check washing. And here's a problem that when an identity thief grabs your checks out of your mailbox, they literally, they wash out where it says your name and the amount, and they put their own name and they increase the amount. And again, that's a $100 million problem every single year.
My thanks to Robert Siciliano. Appreciate it very much. Although I have to say, I'm shocked, shocked to hear parents sit down with their teenagers and their teenagers ignore them. More to come on the People's University of Finance coming up. I'll put on my college professor hat. The subject is financial vocabulary, and today's topic will be net worth.
