Halloween is here and parents everywhere are once again doing everything they can to protect their children from harm. From mothers sending kids out with flashlights, to dad’s checking and sometimes ‘re-checking’ the nights haul, it is clear that times are changing. It used to be the worst thing that could happen to your child’s night of trick or treating was the occasional toothbrush or floss given by the neighborhood dentist. Unfortunately for all the families, parents have another threat to worry about this season and all year long - identity theft.

We have all heard the expression, “like taking candy from a baby,” but few stop to question why identity thieves would target a child. The real question being, “What could anyone possibly want to take from a child?” They have no wallet or purse outside of the old hand-me-down or Velcro one stuffed with candy and doodles and the estranged assortment of missing household knickknacks.

However, the grim reality of the matter is that your child possesses something that thieves are after - their identity. Whether for financial, medical, or criminal means, your child’s identity has been the target of identity thieves as early as 2004 if not sooner. According to the Federal Trade Commission in 2004, those under the age of 18 were the number one targets for the crime. Now four years later, it comes as no surprise that as the crime has grown the targeted victims have not. Among the many reasons for going after a child the three largest are quite simple:

• Children have a clean line of credit - mom and dad might not have bad credit but with a child the thief is guaranteed a certain amount.
• Kids don’t check - no one believes a two year old will get on the phone or online and check their credit report; however, very few parents are willing to take on the job either leaving more time for thieves to get away.
• Getting information from a child is a lot simpler than from an adult - you might not be fooled by free car raffle and may already have a job, young individuals are constantly solicited for their personal information by websites, contests, and even job applications.

While simple enough to figure out, parents should then recognize in this simple list the many ways in which they can then empower themselves to do more this year to keep their children safe. From the start, parents ought to make a conscious choice about whether or not to go it alone and protect their kids, or to solicit help and enlist the aid of a private company. For many parents they can drastically reduce the risk to their children simply by checking their credit at least once a year. Unfortunately this doesn’t prevent the thieves from targeting children, but the simple act of checking can reduce the cost and time of correcting the crime by four times and three months respectively.

Parents, as you prepare your children for a night of ghosts, goblins and treats, start also thinking about those identity thieves that are lurking for the personal information of your children.

There’s no denying it – times are tough. Every week seems to bring news of another bank collapse, or a huge decline in the S&P. Home foreclosures continue to rise, and the lax lending market of 2004 - 2005 has given way to a severe tightening of credit. If this is not a “recession”, than it’s certainly difficult to imagine what it will take for economists to officially declare that we are, in fact, in one.

So what does this mean for the average identity thief? Some argue that a recession may make it harder to steal identities. They say that credit is so tight that even thieves may be having trouble opening new accounts.

I tend to believe that a credit crunch will have exactly the opposite effect - and there are many early indications that seem to suggest that, in fact, a downturn economy is economic high time for identity thieves.

MessageLabs recently reported a 103 percent increase in phishing attacks in September, as cyber thieves targeted banks, credit unions and online retail stores. PandaLabs further found that malicious code has been spiking with falls in the stock market.

With more and more Americans facing economic turmoil, the unfortunate reality is that many may find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and it stands to reason that the months and years to follow will witness a spike in attempts at steal identities.

In today’s downturn economic environment, the same prudence that we achieve when investing in car or homeowner insurance must also be undertaken by investing in identity theft protection.

Today’s tighter credit world means your credit score is more important than ever. Yet a study conducted by the Public Information Research Group found that 79 percent of credit reports had mistakes. Twenty-five percent of credit reports had mistakes that were important enough to cause someone applying for credit to be denied.

There is simply no easy solution to clean up your credit history, regardless of whether the information contained on them is correct or not. As a recent article in the Arizona Republic points out, when it comes to removing false information from credit reports, the burden of proof is on the consumer, and proving that information on your credit report is false will require a considerable amount of time and effort. In fact, a recent 2008 Javelin study indicates that the average fraud incident requires 26 hours to rectify.

We appear to be entering the “Perfect Storm” as it relates to identity theft, which includes:

• Increased sophistication and technical savvy on the part of the criminal
• Increased economic turmoil
• Pressure on corporations to reduce IT related spending, which could result in decreased security related spending
• Pressure on individuals to reduce discretionary spending
• A tightening financial market in which only those with exemplary credit will be able to receive financing

As we enter this perfect storm, now more than ever, it is essential that consumers take a proactive approach towards protecting their most important asset, their own identity!

Everyone saw it coming the moment she was announced as John McCain’s running mate. It didn’t matter if you knew nothing else about Gov. Sarah Palin, the moment you saw her you knew this: Tina Fey would be playing her on SNL. The resemblance is uncanny, the impression hilarious, and even though you can’t seriously classify Fey’s caricature of Palin as identity theft, what happened to Palin’s Yahoo Mail account may be.

Using social engineering, hackers exploited known weaknesses in Yahoo Mail’s password-recovery feature. What is social engineering? Social engineering is the term used to describe when we use social skills, like lying, deception and persuasion, to manipulate people into doing what we want or giving out confidential information. Online, it usually refers to someone posing as a legitimate user in order to gain privileged information like passwords or usernames.

How did they get Palin? Like most web accounts, Yahoo allows you to reset or recover your username and password. Usually this is allowed after you’ve provided personal information that would identify you as the authorized user. How hard was it to get into Palin’s email account?

According to published news reports:

• It took just 15 seconds on Wikipedia to answer the prompt for Palin’s birthdate
• The prompt for a ZIP code took little more time considering Wasilla, Alaska, only has two
• Palin’s personal security question, ‘Where did you meet your spouse?’ took a few attempts before the correct answer was successfully guessed: Wasilla High School.

I’m not well known like Palin, but it still won’t take much more time to learn that I was born in Brooklyn, NY or that my mom’s maiden name was Beck. I went to a lot more grade schools than the average person, so that may slow you down a little, but once you realize my childhood hero was Batman, I’m screwed.

The problem for Palin is that her personal information is, well, public. The problem for the rest of us is that even for a relatively unsophisticated identity thief, ours is too.

With the presidential election nearing its end, our candidates have in much detail debated, discussed and rallied for American issues; much of which having to do with typical topics such as economy, healthcare and of course taxes. In four years, when the presidential election comes again, you may hear of a new hot topic on the minds of the American people and politicians…identity theft. The driving force - organizations sensitive information loss and data breaches.

In 2008 alone there have been nearly 600 personal information data breaches that have affected more than 125 million US consumers! The organizations that have lost our information have ranged from educational institutions to the government and military, medical and healthcare facilities to banking and financial institutions and your everyday businesses. Identity theft costs U.S. consumers $50 billion a year and is a living nightmare as it relates to the average time spent restoring a stolen identity, 175-300 personal hours and 1-2 years!!

What is encouraging is that organizations and businesses are becoming more proactive in instituting a solution before they’ve experienced a breach. Many are taking advantage of services such as LifeLock’s Institutional Breach Services (IBS). LifeLock’s IBS will educate and help organizations to better understand identity theft and to get all parties of the organization protected by LifeLock. Most importantly, to show them what to do in a crisis situation:

• Create an Incident Response Team in your organization.
• Develop a Notification Strategy.
• Create Notification Letter(s) to Affected Individuals.
• Designate a Contact Person to Release Information.

Because there are many different ways that sensitive data can be breached, it can be difficult for some organizations to plan for every possible scenario. It may be imperative that laws mandate that organizations have a solution in place; a “break glass in case of emergency” type resolution to address any data loss crisis. So be on the lookout in 2012, we just may hear slogans on the campaign as they relate to identity theft protection. Where do you stand?

“Do what you should and not what you can”, is a familiar phrase to everyone here at LifeLock but do we really understand its true meaning? From the first call I took here at LifeLock I knew there was something different about our service. Not only are we number one in identity theft protection but I believe we have something different than our competitors. No, I’m not talking about Todd Davis (although he is great). I’m talking about our unique 1 million dollar service guarantee. We don’t always want to rant and rave about how great it is because we hope that very few clients have to actually invoke it. It is important to understand that there are many types of identity theft that cannot be prevented by fraud alerts, credit monitoring, or even credit freezes. This is why the guarantee gives our members peace of mind in knowing that they belong to a company that does “what it should” and not “what it can.”

I think back to a story that I remember happening over the holidays in December of 2007. A woman from Florida had contacted us because her checking account had been fraudulently drained of every last penny. The bank (I’m not saying who, although I will never do business with them) told her they would investigate and contact her in 7-10 days. They gave her no provisional credit and didn’t offer her any temporary help. After listening to her story, I asked if she had any money to get her through the next couple of days. She replied, “No, I have just enough money to feed my dogs.”

I could tell she was desperate and I felt that we needed to do something different. I told her I would call her back while I scrambled to figure out a plan. Being late on a Friday afternoon, there were little options for getting money to her fast. Western Union was the quickest way we could get her money. Working with the LifeLock team, we were able to transfer money to her nearest grocery store. We gave her enough to cover her until the bank finished their investigation and returned all her money.

The point of my story is not to tell you how great we are for taking care of this client. The true point of my story is to tell you what it means to do “what you should and not what you can.” It would have been easy to tell her sorry and to wait for the bank to call her but something about this didn’t feel right. When you do the right thing you know because it feels right.

A few weeks later I received a check from our member with the same amount of money we sent with a “thank you” note. Although we never thought to have the money returned, it was apparent that LifeLock had exceeded this member’s expectations. Stories like this make me proud to work for such a giving company.