Unclaimed Property Blog

With most business and financial information being digitized today, it’s easier than ever for a crook or hacker to steal your identity. You can protect yourself in various ways by being cautious about the information you post on social media, by choosing difficult to guess passwords and by changing those passwords often. Yet even with all the pro activity, you can still have your identity stolen. To protect yourself and your finances, here a few ideas you can implement right now.

Identity Theft Protection 101

If you have ever been the victim of identity theft, you may be able to claim lost funds. Every year millions of people have their identity stolen. For some it’s a minor case. Maybe someone found and kept their ID and then went on to use it as a fake ID to get into bars or clubs. For others, identity theft is much more serious and can lead to the thief buying cars, homes, boats and other big ticket items in the person’s name. Regardless, every year this crime leads to lost funds and the government is now looking to do something about it.

Hacking, spam, malware, viruses and identity theft are of concern to anyone who spends any significant amount of time online. This describes many millions of people, most likely including you, if you’re reading this!

Identity theft is just one of the security concerns that face internet users today. Hacking, spam, phishing and  malware are some others. These can overlap, of course -for example, some phishing attacks are done with intent to steal your identity.

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It’s that time of year when most of us take vacations. Here are some tips on credit card usage.

Even before you leave for foreign destinations or even to another state, make a note of the number to call if your card is lost or stolen. Call the 800 number while at home and ask if this is a valid number to call from out of the country, often it is not. The bank or lender can give you a number to call from your destination country.

Also ask what the policy is for a replacement card when out of the country. Some companies can send you a new one within 24 to 48 hours.

Great news for many as the VA laptop computer has been found. Yes, the missing laptop and hard drive that contained veterans’ personal information has been found. To date there also has not been any report of identity theft concerning those whose confidential data was on the computer.

The announcement was made at the beginning of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday the 28th of June.

The information was confirmed by the deputy attorney general. The statement that the law enforcement has in their possession the laptop and hard drive is a relief to millions of veterans.

Enough is enough, when is it going to stop? You would think security would be beefed up, however, two more government laptops containing sensitive personal data is taken.

The sad thing on this theft is that it is the government agency charged with fighting identity theft that had the two laptops taken. The car theft occurred about 10 days ago. This time the managers were immediately notified. It may be safe to assume that someone learned the lesson of not waiting to tell authorities about the theft.

More recently it isn’t just the public that are being targeted with personal information theft, but companies as well. This is the reason behind some of Silicon Valley’s technology heavyweights uniting to create national laws to protect citizens and companies alike.

Current laws vary from state to state and then there are some federal rules added to these to create much confusion and inconsistency in dealing with identity theft.

EBay, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Intel, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft are some of the near dozen companies stepping into the privacy fight after years of shying away from a broad law. The group called the Consumer Privacy Legislative Forum has come together during the last few months.

With the recent news of Government, companies and schools loosing confidential data you may ave begun to wonder if anything is safe anymore. Read on for information on what to do.

It may have already happened to you. A letter or phone call from your bank or alma mater, stating that a hacker broke into the system and your information was on the computer. Perhaps it was the stolen laptop a company employee took home which has compromised sensitive data on thousands of people, and that you could be among them. What should you do?

Recently there have been stories about Government agencies having their computer data stolen. The latest victim is one of the three major credit bureau companies.

It was announced that an Equifax Inc. company laptop containing employee names and Social Security numbers was stolen from an employee while traveling by train near London .

The data stolen could affect as many as 2,500 of the Atlanta-based company’s 4,600 employees. Information to hand states that the theft happened May 29th and all employees were notified June 7th.