There’s a password on a server in Eastern Europe right now. It’s sitting in a database alongside 847 million others — harvested from seventeen different data breaches over the past four years. It’s been sorted, categorized, and priced. Criminal networks buy and sell these lists the way legitimate businesses buy mailing lists. There’s a decent … Read more
Most families know they should do something about their parent’s online security. They just never quite get around to it. Not because they don’t care. Because “getting around to it” means figuring out where to start, what actually matters, and how to do it without spending an entire weekend on technology — or starting an … Read more
Carol’s son spent three weekends researching identity protection services. He’d read the ads. He’d seen the TV commercials. LifeLock was the name he recognized — the one his mother had heard of, the one that felt trustworthy simply because it had been around so long. He signed her up for the Standard plan. Fourteen dollars … Read more
Patricia’s daughter signed her up for a free credit monitoring service three years ago. It sent a weekly email. Patricia never opened it. Last spring, someone used Patricia’s Social Security number to file a fraudulent tax return and open two credit cards in Florida. The monitoring service sent an alert — four days after the … Read more
James, 68, didn’t know anything was wrong until he tried to refinance his home. The lender ran his credit and found four credit cards he’d never opened, a car loan in his name from a dealership three states away, and a delinquency notice from a utility company in a city he’d never visited. Someone had … Read more
