Old School Identity Theft Is Still a Threat

Tactics like check washing, stealing mail, and snatching wallets or driver’s licenses can still lead a thief to your information and your finances.

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News headlines are filled with stories about recording-setting data breaches, hacking events, stolen personal information, and cybercrime on a daily basis, but that does not mean the “old school” methods of stealing your information and fraud are gone. One recent case involved a smashed car window and a stolen purse. A thief in Nashvillebroke into a car and stole the driver’s purse which had been hidden under the passenger seat. Approximately six months later, fraudulent charges began to appear on the victim’s accounts.

This is by far not the first or even the most lucrative incident of its kind. Data breaches have occurred through stolen laptops that didn’t have encrypted password security, lost or missing flash drives containing patient records, backpacks or briefcases that were placed at the owner’s feet for only a second, and more.

In each instance, whether the missing information was ever used for identity theft, the owner must treat the loss as though it could allow a thief to cause further harm. If your physical property like a purse, briefcase, wallet, or checkbook is ever lost or stolen, there are some steps you should take:

1. File a police report to alert law enforcement to the original theft

While reporting the loss of the physical objects, make sure you take into account the individual items that were in your bag. These might be debit or credit cards, your driver’s license, membership or rewards cards, or a checkbook.

2. Contact your financial institutions immediately

You may need to provide them with a copy of the police report or at least a case number, but it’s important to inform all of the issuing banks. Your cards will be canceled and new cards sent to you.

3. Monitor your account statements

In the case of the stolen purse, there was a lengthy gap before strange activity began to show up. Just because your accounts aren’t impacted the next day, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods. Look at your account statements very carefully—something you should be doing anyway since it alerts you to errors or inconsistencies—and order copies of your credit report after the fact.

4. NEVER carry your Social Security card

The only time you should need to supply the physical card will be for very limited purposes, like accepting a new job after applying. There’s no reason to carry your card on a regular basis, and a thief could use it against you.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the original crime was a once and done event; just because there are highly sophisticated ways that cybercriminals can target you, that doesn’t mean someone can’t still take advantage of your information by stealing it.

Tempe Police Release Footage of Fatal Crash From Inside Self-Driving Uber

The Tempe Police Department has released the first footage of this week’s fatal crash involving a self-driving Uber. Two angles of the crash — one facing out at the road, and one facing in at the Uber safety driver — were compiled into a 22-second video that was released on the Tempe Police’s Twitter account Wednesday night. In both angles, the footage stops just before the car strikes and kills pedestrian 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg.

In the camera angle that faces inward, the Uber safety driver can be seen looking down for several seconds in the moments before the crash. The driver, 44-year-old Rafaela Vasquez, reportedly told Tempe Police chief Sylvia Moir that “it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” and that “the first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.” Vasquez can be seen looking back up at the road just before the car strikes Herzberg.

“The video is disturbing and heartbreaking to watch, and our thoughts continue to be with Elaine’s loved ones,” a spokesperson for Uber said in a statement to The Verge. “Our cars remain grounded, and we’re assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can.”

Police had previously said that the Uber did not slow down before it struck Herzberg, something the footage appears to confirm. We also now know that Herzberg was crossing the street from the median to the sidewalk on the right with her bicycle.

Otherwise, the video of the crash amplifies questions that were already being asked about the current state of self-driving tests being performed around the country, and the technology in general. And it sparks new questions as well. For instance, the car is equipped with sensors that should have been able to spot Herzberg in the middle of the street, but it appears that she either wasn’t recognized by the Uber’s autonomous system, or that she was, and something went wrong in the process of applying the brakes.

It’s also unclear why Vasquez’s eyes left the road, but we don’t know what Uber’s policies are for safety drivers in the first place, and whether or not that was some kind of violation of them. What’s more, it’s hard to say with any certainty from these two angles whether Vasquez could have intervened in time to stop the car to begin with.

Hackers Steal 880K Credit Cards From Expedia Orbitz Customers

Another day, another breach. Today, online travel agency Orbitz disclosed that hackers managed to get both credit card data and personal information from users who made their travel purchases on the site between January 1, 2016 and December 22, 2017. In total, the company says, that’s about 880,000 payment cards that were accessed from what the company calls a “legacy Orbitz  platform.”

The hackers also likely accessed other data, like names, physical or mailing addresses, birth dates, email addresses, phone numbers and the customer’s gender while they were in the systems between October and December 2017. It’s unclear whether the hackers also downloaded this data. In a statement, though, Orbitz told us that it has found no “direct evidence that this personal information was actually taken from the platform.”

Orbitz, which has been part of the Expedia  empire of travel sites since it was acquired in 2015, says that it has updated its security posture since discovering the breach on March 1. The company also notes that its current site is not affected by this breach and that it brought in third-party experts and a forensic investigation firm, as well as law enforcement, to “eliminate and prevent unauthorized access to the platform.”

While this breach isn’t at the level of the giant Equifax and Yahoo hacks, here is yet another company that couldn’t keep your data safe. Indeed, at this point, you can pretty much assume that all of your personal data and likely your passwords and credit cards, too, are up for sale in one of the darker parts of the internet.

Orbitz is notifying customers whose data has been affected and will offer them the standard complimentary year of credit monitoring and identity protection services that pretty much every company now offers customers who were affected by a breach (to the point where many a U.S. consumer probably has access to multiple of these services at the same time).

After Facebook Data Breach, Here's 6 Tips on How to Secure Your Personal Information

This weekend, The New York Times and The Observer of London reported that Cambridge Analytica, a political data-mining and consulting firm, collected and accessed over 50 million Facebook users' private information without their knowledge.

The data, originally claimed to have been collected for academic purposes, reportedly was later used to target Facebook users for crafted ads and messages for President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

What makes this breach unique is that Cambridge Analytica didn’t steal this information — it was given to the company.

In 2014, a survey app was crafted titled ThisIsYourDigitalLife. Facebook users could connect it to their accounts, granting access to their profiles.

When breaches and hacks happen to major companies, from Target to Equifax, users and consumers are often left anxiety-ridden about the safety and security of their personal information.

Social media users should assess why they’re handing over personal information before doing so. You should ask yourself, ‘Do I know what people are going to do with my data?’

Here are six tips to help prevent your digital information from being used without your consent.

Share with care. What you put on the web can last a lifetime. Before posting about yourself with others, think about how it will be perceived now and in the future.

Own your online presence. Set your privacy settings to a comfort level good for you. Urge people to really think about it deeply.

Spring clean. The same way you spring clean your house, the same needs to be done for your computer. Look at all your apps, and ask what are they trying to find out about you. Get rid of the apps you aren’t using.

Secure devices. Use facial recognition or long pass phrases instead of passwords. Passwords with special characters are hard to crack, but also hard to remember. Longer phrases are better, like ‘mary had a little lamb.’ Find a pass phrase that is something long that you’ll remember and will be difficult to replicate.

Use two-step verification. Your most important sites, like banking and health apps, should have a code or fingerprint after the pass codes.

Ask why you’re giving certain information. If you’re taking an online quiz, that quiz doesn’t need to know your address and phone number. Be careful if you feel (uncomfortable) disclosing info to certain questions. Vendors can be putting together a profile on you based on the info you give.

Macy's Will Use VR to Let Shoppers 'See' Furniture in Their Homes

Macy's is turning to mobile checkout options and virtual reality in an effort to get more people in its stores. The former uses the store's app and aims to make getting out of the mall easier. The latter is for designing a room's look with furniture and furnishings.

To use the in-store mobile checkout you'll have to be on the Macy's WiFi network. From there you scan your items with your phone's camera. Before walking out, you'll have to go to a special station near the door to verify your purchases with an employee, but it all sounds relatively painless. Macy's says "most" merchandise will be available with the feature, but that it won't apply to "leased departments" or expensive jewelry.

With the VR tools, you'll layout the rough shape and design of your room with a provided tablet. And once that's set in place, you can place virtual sofas and loveseats around the room before donning a VR helmet and seeing how they "feel" in your space. It almost sounds like a stopgap for Macy's' next application though: augmented reality. Next month, an update will start rolling out for its mobile app, which will enable you to see how a new credenza will look in your room, not a roughshod approximation of it.

Testing for the mobile check-out is rolling out right now and will wrap by year's end, starting with the the New York Bloomingdale's in SoHo. As far as the VR goes, there's a pilot program running in Manhattan, New Jersey and Florida, with it going online in 60 more stores by this fall.