11 Dangers to Personal Information; Is Your Information Safe?

PORTLAND, Ore. — July 10, 2013 — The security of personal information is at greater risk now than a decade ago. Financial identity theft and medical identity theft—with life-threatening implications—are impacting millions of people. In fact, experts estimate that an identity is stolen every three seconds. According to leading experts, global networks and use of advanced sinister technologies are expected to escalate, threatening consumers’ information:

1. Global criminals. Criminals are now globally connected and increasingly part of organized crime rings.

Rick Kam, president and co-founder, ID Experts

2. Undetected hackers. Advanced persistent threat (APT) is when hackers gain access to a company’s network and remain there undetected for a long period of time.

James Christiansen, chief information risk officer, RiskyData

3. Malicious attackers. Hacktivists have an advantage over today’s corporate data.

Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, the Ponemon Institute

4. Data breaches affect everyone and everything. Breaches affect large and small businesses of all kinds, regardless of sophistication.

Kirk Nahra, partner, Wiley Rein, LLC

5. Information is infinite. Health information can be stolen from anywhere in the world, distributed to an infinite number of locations for an infinite period of time and can cause limitless damage.

James C. Pyles, principal and co-founder, Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville PC

6. More devices, science fiction type-technologies, to digitize personal data. Drones, utility smart meters, automated license plate readers, and more powerful facial recognition software—all used to collect and digitize consumers' sensitive personal data—are on the horizon, forcing consumers to demand better privacy protections.

George Jenkins, editor, I’ve Been Mugged

7. The Insider Threat. Dishonest and poorly trained employees pose one of the greatest threats to consumers' personal information; it's much easier to do damage once inside the castle.

Philip L. Gordon, shareholder, Littler Mendelson, P.C.

8. Data cannot be protected. The rate of exposure for personally identifiable information is now so great, we must concede that the data itself is no longer able to be protected.

Anthony M. Freed, community engagement coordinator, Tripwire Inc.

9. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). More employers are allowing employees to utilize their own personally-owned mobile devices for work. While this can increase productivity and convenience, it introduces several potential data security threats.

Joanna Crane, senior consultant, Identity Theft Assistance Center

10. Data breaches involving sensitive consumer information have become the new normal. Consumers must play an active and long-term role in the privacy and security of their personal information and regularly monitor their financial account statements, credit reports and healthcare explanation of benefits.

Robin Slade, development coordinator, Medical Identity Fraud Alliance (MIFA) and president & CEO, FraudAvengers.org

11. The Surveillance Economy. With technologies such as Google Glass that can record video without anyone's knowledge or approval, we are always on candid camera. Combine that with location-based tracking on our mobile devices and suddenly privacy seems to be an outdated concept.

John Sileo, privacy evangelist and CEO of The Sileo Group

“Identity theft will not go away, until the issue of identity is solved,” said Robert Siciliano, CEO, IDTheftSecurity and personal security and identity theft expert. “‘Identity-proofing’" consumers involves verifying and authenticating with numerous technologies, and the flexibility of consumers to recognize a slight trade-off of privacy for security.”

About ID Experts

ID Experts delivers complete data breach care. The company's solutions in data breach prevention, analysis and response are endorsed by the American Hospital Association, meet regulatory compliance and achieve the most positive outcomes for its customers. ID Experts is a leading advocate for privacy as a contributor to legislation, a corporate and active member in both the IAPP and HIMSS, a corporate member of HCCA and chairs the ANSI Identity Management Standards Panel PHI Project. For more information, join the LinkedIn All Things HITECH discussion at bit.ly/AllThingsHITECH or All Things Data Breach at http://linkd.in/TsbwgJ; follow ID Experts on Twitter @IDExperts.

###

Media Contacts:

Kelly Stremel or Lisa MacKenzie

MacKenzie Marketing Group

503-225-0725

kellys@mackenzie-marketing.com

lisam@mackenzie-marketing.com