Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers, and Identity Thieves

by Adam Levin, Beau Friedlander (With)

Overview

Increasingly, identity theft is a fact of life. We might once have hoped to protect ourselves from hackers with airtight passwords and aggressive spam folders, and those are good ideas as far as they go. But the truth is, there are people out there -- a lot of them -- who treat stealing your identity as a full-time job.

One such company is a nameless firm located in Russia, which has a trove of over a billion internet passwords. Another set up a website full of live streams of hacked web cameras, showing everything from people's offices and lobbies to the feeds from baby monitors. Even purchases made in person are still logged by retailers like Target, who are famously vulnerable to hackers.

Adam Levin, a longtime consumer advocate and identity fraud expert, is your guide to this brave new world. By telling memorable stories and extracting the relevant lessons, he offers a strategy for dealing with these risks. You may not be able to prevent identity theft, but you certainly shouldn't wait until it happens to take action. Levin's approach is defined by the three M's: minimizing risk, monitoring your identity, and managing the damage. The book is also organized around the different problems caused by identity theft: financial, criminal, medical, familial, etc., enabling readers to dip into the sections most relevant to them.

Swiped is a practical, lively book that is essential to surviving the ever-changing world of online security. It is invaluable not only for preventing problems but helping cope when they arrive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610395878
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	11/24/2015
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Adam Levin is a consumer advocate with more than 30 years’ experience in personal finance, privacy, real estate and government service. A former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, Levin is Chairman and founder of Identity Theft 911, Chairman and co-founder of Credit.com and serves as a spokesperson for both companies. An expert on personal finance, credit, identity management, fraud and privacy, he writes a weekly column which appears on Huffington Post and ABCNews.com. He is a frequent guest on television, and has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business News, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, CBS Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight and scores of radio stations throughout the country. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

Table of Contents

Part 1 An Overview of the Problem

1 What's in a Name (and a Number)? 3

2 A Short History of Identity (and Fraud): (And You Thought It Was Just About Credit Cards) 19

3 Swiping Happens 32

Part 2 The Basics of What You Can Do

4 Understanding the Problem Is the Solution 47

5 The Three Ms 59

Part 3 The Many Types of Identity Theft

6 Spies in Your Home: How the Internet of Things May Violate Your Privacy, Threaten Your Security, and Ruin Your Credit 71

7 A Taxing Situation 85

8 It's a Hard-Knock Life: Child Identity Theft 96

9 May the Farce Be with You: Social Media Dos and Don'ts 108

10 From Dangerous to Deadly: On Healthcare Scams and Medical Identity Theft 122

11 Wanted Dead or Alive: (But It's Easier If You're Dead) 140

12 Culture Eats Strategy: Business Considerations 149

13 The Three Ms for Companies: You Must Build It Because They Will Come 164

14 The Highest Law 176

Part 4 Resources and Terms

Appendix 1 Fraud Stories 193

Appendix 2 A Glossary of Scams 211

Appendix 3 Identity Theft and the Deceased: Prevention and Victim Tips 241

Appendix 4 Request a Credit Report for the Deceased 249

Appendix 5 Deceased Affidavit of Fact 251

Acknowledgments 253

Index 257

Editorial Reviews

"The real value of Levin's book, though, lies not in its diagnosis, alarming as it is, but in its practical advice on how to protect yourself. No one can make themselves completely safe, but much like burglars who target the most vulnerable house on the street, hackers will seek out those with the weakest online defenses. Levin has a wealth of suggestions for making yourself less vulnerable.” —The Sunday Times (UK)

“In this alarming book, Levin, a consumer advocate and founder of the consulting agency Identity Theft 911, warns about the prominent dangers of identity fraud in the increasingly digital world… [SWIPED is] a primer on the potential dangers and what's at stake.” —Publishers Weekly

“A real eye-opener . . . rock-solid evidence on the rise of identity theft and multiple steps we can take to counteract an attack.” —Kirkus Reviews

“If you have a credit card, or money, or a car, or a house, or anything of value—if you have a job or a family or a name—you need to read this book.” —Marc Weber Tobias, Security.org and Forbes contributor

From the Publisher

2015-09-03
Useful advice on protecting your identity. As a consumer advocate with more than three decades of experience, Levin has the perfect background to discuss the threats associated with identity theft. In his first book, he provides readers with a realistic overview of the many ways one's identity can be snatched or stolen via the Internet, and he provides detailed information on how to counteract these kinds of attacks. "You're going to get got," writes the author, so it's best to assume the worst and learn how to protect personal information. This includes social security numbers, phone numbers, email and physical addresses, credit reports, medical records, and other data that social media and other websites, as well as banks, stores, doctors' offices, and others, collect that create a well-rounded picture of who you are. Creative and determined hackers can piece together snippets of information from a variety of sources to re-create your profile and use it to undermine your credit score or learn when and where you're on vacation, which leaves your house vulnerable to theft. Levin is thorough in his descriptions of possible hacks, and he offers easy-to-follow procedures that will help deter these attackers. A long list of fraud stories drives home how devastating identity theft can be to a living person (or for the family of the deceased), and a comprehensive glossary of scams is a real eye-opener. Levin doesn't hype up the threats and doesn't gloss over the real dangers; he's genuinely concerned about the increasing risks of identity theft and wants to make sure people know how to protect themselves. If large stores like Target or online sites like TurboTax are vulnerable, then the average person is definitely in the cross hairs. Fortunately, Levin has provided some excellent lines of defense. Rock-solid evidence on the rise of identity theft and the multiple steps one can take to counteract an attack.

Kirkus Reviews