May 06
A massive data breach at Sony’s PlayStation Network has left customers worrying about that their personal information including credit card information. Sony is hoping to ease concerns by offering free identity theft protection to affected customers.
The PlayStation Network links gamers worldwide in live play and serves the company’s Qriocity movie and music services.
Sony says the identity theft protection will be free for 12 months after enrollment. The company says account holders should expect an email in coming days with instructions on how to enroll.
Those who enroll will receive monthly status reports and alerts if the program detects their personal information is being misused. The program also includes an insurance policy that provides up to $1 million in relief for covered costs for a year after an identity theft incident.
Customers will have until June 18th to sign up for the program.
Sony shut down its PlayStation Network on April 20, a day after it said it began investigating unusual activity.
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May 06
Published: May 07, 2011Tags: data breaches, Defcon, smartphone, Social Engineering
1. Data Breaches: Businesses suffer most often from data breaches, making up 35% of total breaches. Medical and healthcare services are also frequent targets, accounting for 29.1% of breaches. Government and military make up 16.2%, banking, credit, and financial services account for 10.5%, and 9.2% of breaches occur in educational institutes.
Even if you protect your PC and keep your critical security patches and antivirus definitions updated, there is always the possibility that your bank or credit card company may be hacked, and your sensitive data sold for the purposes of identity theft.
2. Social Engineering: This is the act of manipulating people into taking certain actions or disclosing sensitive information. It’s essentially a fancier, more technical form of lying.
At 2010’s Defcon, a game was played in which contestants used the telephone to convince company employees to voluntarily cough up information they probably shouldn’t have.
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May 06
Sony CEO Howard Stringer has taken to his companys blog for some additional damage control in light of the ongoing PlayStation Network data breach. Aside from the requisite were taking this very seriously rhetoric, Stringers letter contains a few details pertinent to PSN users.
For starters, U.S. PSN members are all getting a years worth of identity theft coverage that provides cyber monitoring, access to identity restoration specialists, and up to $1 million worth of identity theft insurance. Details will be sent out via e-mail over the next few days.
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May 02
It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, rich or poor, if you have good credit or bad credit, pay with cash or credit card, whether or not you use the Internet, or even own a computer. You can be a maintenance worker or a scientist. It doesn’t matter.
Whether you are alive or even if you are dead, as long as you have a Social Security number, you are a potential identity theft victim.
Reporters tend to be fairly savvy and well informed. Identity theft, however, is a complicated issue, and anyone can be stumped, regardless of your level of security intelligence.
One reporter received an alert about “irregular check card activity.” It was sent late one weeknight, and she didn’t see the email until the following night. At first, she couldn’t believe her bank account could have been compromised, and suspected it was a phishing email designed to trick her into disclosing her account information.
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May 01
Its a pretty big deal when Congress calls you up to testify at a hearing especially when its regarding something bad you did. Most companies drop everything they are doing, increase their lobbyists monthly retainers, craft talking points and prepare for the PR assault that is coming. Oh and hope that the members of Congress are gentle on them. Or, well, if you are Sony Corporation, you can simply decline the invitation.
This is precisely what will happen when Sony does not show up for a House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade hearing tomorrow about the threat of data breaches after hackers stole personal information from 77 million Sony PlayStation Network accounts. Wait, so the hearing is actually about Sonyso this is essentially a party is being thrown and the guest of honor refuses to show up? At least the folks at Sony were kind enough to provide answers written questions from the subcommittee on the data breach.
And, some members of Congress are a pretty miffed about Sony declining to testify.
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Apr 27
An ex-con picked the wrong home to invade.
Imagine you’re in bed counting sheep dreaming of clouds and flying unicorns. Suddenly there is a knock on the door, which is startling to most people who wake up to the presence of noise and especially that of a knock at 3am.
In your discombobulated state you shuffle over to the door and open it to see who it is, they give you some song and dance and you open the door. Next, a hand wrapped over your face nose and mouth.
In my world this would never happen as previously described. In my world when the door is knocked on or the bell is rung a ferocious toothy German shepherd would lose her mind trying to get through the door, while I’m looking at my security cameras to see who is at the front door. At the same time I’m accessing an intercom to begin dialog all the while ready to press a panic button on my home security alarm.
If the person at the door is in uniform I’m calling the police to determine if they are supposed to be there.
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