People looking to safeguard their personal information from the risk of misuse, LifeLock^® identity theft protection is a proactive defense system that monitors your identity and alerts you of potential dangers.  LifeLock^® is a membership services that can alert you on potential threats from both credit and noncredited related.

LifeLock^® help protect your personal information using a combination of data surveillance techniques and outstanding member service, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  The membership service is based on a 5 Points of Protection:

Monitoring Your Identity

Once you complete enrollment for LifeLock^® identity theft protection, we immediately begin monitoring for threats* against your identity within our network.

 Scanning for Identity Threats

LifeLock^® identity theft protection includes a comprehensive, proprietary method of scanning for identity threats.

Responding to Identity Theft

With LifeLock^® identity theft protection, we alert you via e-mail or phone if we detect that your personal information may have been used—which means you’ll hear from us only when necessary.

Service Guarantee

When you complete enrollment for LifeLock^® or LifeLock Ultimate^™ protection, you are immediately backed by our comprehensive $1 Million Total Service Guarantee and have access to Member Services and our world-class remediation system.

Tracking your Credit Score

LifeLock Credit Score Manager™ provides important safeguards for monitoring and helping you maintain your credit score. More than just free annual credit reports*, we monitor all three major credit bureaus daily and notify you of any changes in your credit report.

Once enrollment is completed, your identity is protected.  Within 48 hours you will receive a welcome email explaining all your LifeLock member benefits.  You will also be directed to your secure online member portal to complete your member profile and provide important monitoring information.   Within two weeks, your Welcome Kit and membership cards will arrive at your home.

5 Data Protection Tools Available

It is always a challenge for companies to protect their data. Emails are used extensively for internal and external communication and thus it is important to have certain policies to protect email privacy. Corporations need to be careful regarding various things while they are in the process of dealing with challenges in terms of protecting the data and the attached risks as well.

Monitoring employee email

Companies should habitually check the emails of the employee. Unfortunately, there are no policies in place in order to check the emails through a proper mechanism. Hence, it is imperative to abide with the local privacy laws of the nation so that employees do not go against them as well. However, if they go against the law, then they will be entitled for punishment according the laws of that country.

Therefore, companies should adopt ways so that they get sufficient knowledge about the laws and greatly benefit in the process as well. As they become knowledgeable about the same, they can take the help of policies in order to inform the employees about the monitoring of their emails. After that it is equally very important to inform them regarding what they are going to do with the data that they have gathered as well.

Protect data

It is in the best interest of companies to protect data. Hence, they go overboard towards ensuring their informational security. Setting the level of security is one common practice, which will give additional security. However, it does not mean that the data is 100% safe. You can take the help of software and by downloading them; you can further enhance the security level. Hence, companies usually rely on monitoring the employees as the best way to ensure that their information is not going through unsafe hands.

Data risks

Companies need to be informative against all types of data risk.  One of the common malpractices which are quite rampant is that employees steal office data and subsequently use it somewhere else and hence they even sell it for their vested interests as well.  If it is enough to instill fear in your mind, then think again. You will become even more scared after hearing this. Some employees deliberately deliver viruses that corrupt the overall functioning of the office computers as well. This is indeed a heinous act done by the employees and there is only one way, which can help in finding the real culprit. Unless and until emails are monitored, you will possibly not be able to find the real culprit. In this way, we can know the immense utility and importance of regularly following such a practice in the office.

Hence, it is advisable to be vigilant regarding the evil designs of the employees so that you do not end up facing problems later on. These steps are indeed beneficial for business owners.

Whenever a user enters some personal information on any website, the major concern for the user is –how will the site use the information? Today, almost all the websites make big promises about their privacy policies but actually, most of them make baseless claims and simply copy their policy statement from some other website. The problem is that such websites never fulfill their promises and cheat their customers by leaking the information to external sources for marketing and making money. Worst cases occur when the financial details like account number or credit card number are leaked to third party that use it for invading one’s financial assets.
The users must be well aware of their rights in such cases. They must have an in-depth knowledge of the various privacy policies and the meaning of its content. A general privacy policy comprises of a disclosure statement. There are many laws about consumer rights and the users must be aware of them. The consumers can sue the websites for breach of faith according to the data standards set by FTC. History reveals that many renowned companies have faced lawsuits when their privacy policies went under the scanner by the law.

A privacy policy mostly states that no private and confidential information about the user is shareable with any other party. Most companies promise that they will never share your private data with any third party but the case is opposite. Whenever you submit your personal information on any website, they have to go through various phases in which the site may have to provide your details to reliable third party companies like the websites hosting company, your ISP etc. This is how even the most renowned companies have to face situations in which they are accused of breaking the privacy policies.

For an effective and a genuine privacy policy, one must contact an attorney who has knowledge of various data privacy laws. Give him a complete insight of how your company operates. He must have the complete knowledge of how you collect data from the users and where it goes. The policy should be clear and flexible. It must be a transparent statement, which reveals all the processes, which the data must go through. The user must be aware that their data is shareable with reliable third parties.

Updating your privacy policy is as important as creating one. While creating a privacy policy, it is notable to make it flexible enough for later use. The policies of your business may change from time to time. The new changes must be involved in the updated policies. The way you deal with the user’s data should not be different from the one stated in the policy.

In the process of creating an effective and genuine privacy policy, you may come across the shortcomings of your organization. Thus, creating an effective policy statement is altogether a beneficial process that makes your business more reliable and helps it to flourish!

Whenever a user enters some personal information on any website, the major concern for the user is –how will the site use the information? Today, almost all the websites make big promises about their privacy policies but actually, most of them make baseless claims and simply copy their policy statement from some other website. The problem is that such websites never fulfill their promises and cheat their customers by leaking the information to external sources for marketing and making money. Worst cases occur when the financial details like account number or credit card number are leaked to third party that use it for invading one’s financial assets.
The users must be well aware of their rights in such cases. They must have an in-depth knowledge of the various privacy policies and the meaning of its content. A general privacy policy comprises of a disclosure statement. There are many laws about consumer rights and the users must be aware of them. The consumers can sue the websites for breach of faith according to the data standards set by FTC. History reveals that many renowned companies have faced lawsuits when their privacy policies went under the scanner by the law.

A privacy policy mostly states that no private and confidential information about the user is shareable with any other party. Most companies promise that they will never share your private data with any third party but the case is opposite. Whenever you submit your personal information on any website, they have to go through various phases in which the site may have to provide your details to reliable third party companies like the websites hosting company, your ISP etc. This is how even the most renowned companies have to face situations in which they are accused of breaking the privacy policies.

For an effective and a genuine privacy policy, one must contact an attorney who has knowledge of various data privacy laws. Give him a complete insight of how your company operates. He must have the complete knowledge of how you collect data from the users and where it goes. The policy should be clear and flexible. It must be a transparent statement, which reveals all the processes, which the data must go through. The user must be aware that their data is shareable with reliable third parties.

Updating your privacy policy is as important as creating one. While creating a privacy policy, it is notable to make it flexible enough for later use. The policies of your business may change from time to time. The new changes must be involved in the updated policies. The way you deal with the user’s data should not be different from the one stated in the policy.

In the process of creating an effective and genuine privacy policy, you may come across the shortcomings of your organization. Thus, creating an effective policy statement is altogether a beneficial process that makes your business more reliable and helps it to flourish!

E-mail privacy is the term used for protecting mails from gaining unauthorized access. Privacy is an important factor, which is constitutionally enforceable in countries across the world.  In United States, which is the world’s most powerful country, it is the Fourth Amendment in its constitution. It drives the policy of correspondence. Similarly, it has a guarantee in the Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Since, this form a part of the written law, hence any individual does not have any right to say anything.

The national security along with safety of the public and economic well-being holds great importance.  It helps in peaceful upbringing of the country.   Hence, the article limits itself if the rule of Article 8 in the constitution contravenes with national interest.

We are increasingly dependent on computers as we send emails to one another while doing business transactions with our esteemed clients. Since, we transfer all types of sensitive information online, hence, it becomes very important and necessary that we should abide by and strictly follow e-mail privacy.

E-mail is quite an easy prey to all forms of malicious attacks from the hacker community online. It forms an example of a passive threat when the contents in the message become releasable. Similarly, on the other hand, it relates to an active threat when the content of the message become modifiable.  Given below are some aspects of email that one should know to protect his email privacy.

Disclosure of Information

Mostly the emails are not encrypted. Hence, it allows even the persons who are not designated to read the contents of the email.

Traffic analysis

Due to heightened security, which the world is seeing these days, especially in the wake of so many terrorist activities, messages in the form of emails are regularly monitored.  This practice is also a deterrent to malpractices, which have been rampant in politics as well.

Modification of messages

There is always a constant danger that the contents in the email become modifiable during storage or transport.  Any person with smart hacking techniques can easily get access of the ARP or Address Resolution Protocol and hence he can do whatever he feels like.

Masquerade

A message is communicable in anybody’s name or the name of the organization as well.

Forwarding of previous messages

There is a great chance that your previous messages reach other people. It is going to result in great confusion along with severe damage to the status and dignity of the organization. Similarly, it can be a source of great damage if the email orders transferring of funds, doing reservations along with others.

Spoofing

There is great chance that false messages might find its way into the mail system of other users.

Denial of Service

An overloaded mail system can look to be out of order. Hence, you need to be quite careful regarding everything. You can make a huge difference for sure by being careful.

We just cannot imagine our lives without the Internet especially emails. It is important to know how unsafe they are, if correct and timely action is not taken by email users. Therefore, it becomes imperative for them to learn about email protection, which can be a primary source of virus infection thereby leading to serious data loss. This article discusses some common email protection tools available. Read reviews about such software before you proceed to purchase and download the same.

1.     Email Spam & Virus Prevention Tools

Using an email client is a popular practice today. Emails are most likely to get infected with virus and malicious content as there are many spam mails that one gets daily. Most users do not know much about the email protection tools available in the market and do not care about protecting their emails. However, they do not realize how serious it can be if important email data is lost or stolen. The installation of such software into your system protects your email from any harmful content and as a result, your system is also protected from the malicious viruses entering your system through contaminated emails.

Email protection software prevents inbox from receiving spam mails. Many spam filters accompany such software when it is installed from the net. However, there are a few points to remember:

2.     Email Encryption Tools

It is vital to protect emails from unauthorized access to maintain electronic privacy. In some countries there are laws that protect e-mails from all types of spying. To ensure email privacy, the routers in the e-mail path, and also the connections need to be must be secured. This is possible by data encryption that converts the content of e-mails into text that can be decrypted by the email recipient only.

Many encryptions tools are available on the net. Some are paid while others are totally free. These help to secure your emails through the setup of VPN’s, SSL and an encrypted messaging system.

3.     Email Backup Tool

Important business and personal data is stored in emails and if it gets lost, it can result in sever loss for organizations and individuals. So email back-up tools are essential to take regular backup of mails.  Such tools help to safely store your mails on the providers network online, which can be utilized for retrieval in case of any security breach. The backup can be taken on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

4.     Email Virus Protection Tools

An antivirus suite ensures that the computer and its programs do not catch a virus infection. These tools run in the background to provide real-time protection from all types of malware. They even check outgoing messages. Always keep this anti-virus program up-to date for it to be able to defeat the latest threats that are constantly floating around on the web.

5.     Anti-Phishing Software

Phishing scams are common these days and aim at extracting confidential information like ones username, passwords and credit card by presenting oneself as a trusted entity through e-mails or any other electronic communication

Anti-phishing software helps one identify mails and websites that have phishing content. This software is often used with web browsers and email clients. Some web browsers too have built-in capability to prevent anti-phishing. Password managers are also used to prevent phishing.

It is always a challenge for companies to protect their data. Emails are used extensively for internal and external communication and thus it is important to have certain policies to protect email privacy. Corporations need to be careful regarding various things while they are in the process of dealing with challenges in terms of protecting the data and the attached risks as well.

Monitoring employee email

Companies should habitually check the emails of the employee. Unfortunately, there are no policies in place in order to check the emails through a proper mechanism. Hence, it is imperative to abide with the local privacy laws of the nation so that employees do not go against them as well. However, if they go against the law, then they will be entitled for punishment according the laws of that country.

Therefore, companies should adopt ways so that they get sufficient knowledge about the laws and greatly benefit in the process as well. As they become knowledgeable about the same, they can take the help of policies in order to inform the employees about the monitoring of their emails. After that it is equally very important to inform them regarding what they are going to do with the data that they have gathered as well.

Protect data

It is in the best interest of companies to protect data. Hence, they go overboard towards ensuring their informational security. Setting the level of security is one common practice, which will give additional security. However, it does not mean that the data is 100% safe. You can take the help of software and by downloading them; you can further enhance the security level. Hence, companies usually rely on monitoring the employees as the best way to ensure that their information is not going through unsafe hands.

Data risks

Companies need to be informative against all types of data risk.  One of the common malpractices which are quite rampant is that employees steal office data and subsequently use it somewhere else and hence they even sell it for their vested interests as well.  If it is enough to instill fear in your mind, then think again. You will become even more scared after hearing this. Some employees deliberately deliver viruses that corrupt the overall functioning of the office computers as well. This is indeed a heinous act done by the employees and there is only one way, which can help in finding the real culprit. Unless and until emails are monitored, you will possibly not be able to find the real culprit. In this way, we can know the immense utility and importance of regularly following such a practice in the office.

Hence, it is advisable to be vigilant regarding the evil designs of the employees so that you do not end up facing problems later on. These steps are indeed beneficial for business owners.

Biometrics is one of the best ways to protect Identity theft. It is one of the latest technologies to hit the market, which help in fighting the menace relating to identity frauds. The entire process of biometrics includes collection of the personal data of an individual starting from fingerprints, facial recognition, voice patterns, retinal scans, DNA and photograph. This technology gets good reviews and media attention, especially in serials related to crimes.

This technology has brought a full stop to the rising fraud of identity thefts to a good extent. Along with this new technology, some of the innovations for data protection like data encryption and RFID tags are helping in securing personal information.

Identity theft has been a serious issue for all the individuals as once the personal information is stolen; it can cause a big loss to a person. This is the reason federal government has thought of bringing in Biometric ID cards to avoid illegal immigration at airports. It is of great use for the government as the technology is very useful in protecting one’s personal information but still people lack interest in protecting their data. Use of Biometrics will surely help in guarding identity and may turn out to be a flawless technology with some future developments.

We all know that stolen Identity cases take three to five years or even more to solve. It is very easy to get a new credit card, to open a new account but it is very difficult to get back the original identity. Identity once lost is difficult to get back.

Although Biometrics is a secure technology, it is a point of discussion for experts. The biometric details on entering the computer get converted into numbers and saved in the database. This database is again accessible to hackers for hacking the system network. However, it is still data for the thieves, be it in number form or in digital voice form.

According to many experts, there is an ongoing comparison between Token system and Biometrics process. As you may know, Token identification is a form wherein a card, a password and a Pin is issued by the authorities. According to them, a lost card is immediately canceled and blocked. Then, the person gets a fresh card. However, a stolen biometric identification is not replaceable, as it is not in card form. Biometrics in comparison to Token system has some privacy issues, which is of a great concern to many experts questioning the security under Biometrics technology. On the contrary, some experts also have an opinion that no two fingerprints can be same. Nevertheless, it is also possible to incur a fraud with a fingerprints scanner.

Therefore, it is still difficult to say which form of technology is a secured form for protection of personal data. It is a big task for all experts to safeguard personal identity of individuals.

Identity Theft Could Happen to Anyone

Internet identity theft is increasing with every passing day. The information that is stolen by identity thieves is obviously misused. The popularity of the Internet and online shopping has made ID theft more rampant. Using identity theft tools thieves extract personal data from naive computer users for illegal purposes. Identity thieves extract information like PIN numbers, bank account details, social security numbers and more.

Identity theft can be prevented with the help of some of the latest software tools. One can avoid being an identity theft victim by utilizing some useful software that helps prevents the same. Before knowing how to protect yourself from identity theft, you must know about the identity theft tools available as it will help you find a solution and beware of those tools. This article discusses 5 identity theft tools.

Spam/Phishy Mails

The most widespread method used to steal identities is Phishy and Spam mails.

One must be careful about getting trapped by “phishy” emails. In Phishy mails the sender pretends to be some genuine bank or any other organization or government body.  The mail creates some genuine scenario to ask for or confirm your personal information. Another popular strategy used by ID thieves when phishing is saying that they are from some known anti- fraud cell and need to verify your information to protect you from identity theft. Sometimes the mail says that the mail recipient has won some lottery and asks for bank details to deposit money. So beware of such mails.

Spyware

Spyware is a kind of malware that gets downloaded and installed on computers on its own and collects important pieces of information about computer users stealthily.  Usually the user is unaware about the spyware software on his PC as it gets installed discreetly. In certain cased spywares like key loggers are installed for monitoring or investigation. Some spywares are used collect info like surfing pattern of people, etc., but it is the privacy-invasive spyware that one needs to beware of. If your computer gets slow and you feel that your computer settings have been changed on its own, it can be due to spyware.

Key logger

A key logger is a tool or program that records the keystrokes of the computer user. The keystrokes that are logged are hidden in the PC and can be retrieved by the attacker or ID thief later. The logged info can be passwords, email content, etc. Even though key loggers are also used for legal purposes, illegal applications involve cyber criminals who use these tools to get sensitive information through fraudulent means. Spouses use key loggers to monitor their partner’s online activities. These programs usually get installed when you install some free software and keep a track of information that is misused later on.

Instant Messengers

Instant Messengers are also being used by ID thieves to collect personal information. This is done through IM viruses that are becoming quite common. Computer hackers use IMs these days as even anti-virus software is unable to detect IM viruses and worms.

Trojan

A Trojan horse is a tool or software used by cyber criminals to steals information or harms the computer. Trojans delete files, eliminate registry entries, ends running processes and does other similar activities. Trojan horses have become a severe threat. Computer users install Trojans themselves under the impression of installing some plug in, etc.  When it gets installed, it sends out information to its control server.

The word ‘privacy’, derived from Latin word ‘privatus’, means facts either deprived or separated from everything. The culture and the law of any country establish the amount of privacy they should be entitled.

In the United States, British common law gave birth to privacy rights, which were bound to protect the interference of people concerning property and life. As time passed, these rights enforced the spiritual nature of a man along with his feelings and intellect as well.  Subsequently, the meaning of property gave way to both forms of possession in terms of tangible and intangible.

Newspapers were responsible for popularizing the word privacy and hence the interest of people grew manifolds as well. Newspapers presented highly sensitized news in the mid 1800s. Thanks to advent in technology, portable cameras took various pictures of people. Since privacy was invaded, hence it came into light in the article of Warren and Brabdeis, which is “The Right to Privacy”.

It was in their article that they explained how the changes in politics or economics result in hampering the recognition of new rights. Hence, it is necessary for the common law to grow so that it can meet all the required demands of the society as well.  This law needs to protect the right of individuals and people who are doing business as well and hence laws were created which are categorized as General and Specific.

The privacy which is over all related with the individual’s personal information, has its effects in the policies and are out there in governing many areas of information is termed as General privacy. While on the other hand, Specific Privacy is again categorized into physical, informational, organizational along with spiritual as well.

1. Physical – This privacy keeps a check into the personal lives of the people. Getting intimate or showing one’s body; similarly searching the person’s belongings without permission, unauthorized access to vehicle or homes along with taking medical decisions without the interference of the government.

2. Informational- Privacy of data along with protection of their right while sharing their data. One needs to tell the source of data collection as well. This privacy includes financial privacy, in terms of its financial transactions and history. Internet privacy shows the type of information released through this medium and who gets access to control it. Medical records cannot be shared with others in medical privacy.
3. Organizational-the information about government bodies, corporations along with other organizations and its protection.
4. Spiritual and Intellectual- This is the privacy, which protects the right to practice religion of choice.

The laws of privacy are continuously evolving thanks to the advancement in technology. Similarly, cultures, nations along with the people are also in the process of changing their thoughts regarding the same as well.