{"id":16262,"date":"2002-12-23T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2002-12-23T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=16262"},"modified":"2015-03-10T16:35:54","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T21:35:54","slug":"hired-guns-can-keep-identity-thieves-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/hired-guns-can-keep-identity-thieves-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Hired Guns Can Keep Identity Thieves Away"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"\"Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/strong><\/em>
\nBy Stan Miller<\/p>\n

Sometimes, technology privacy and security are so important that you bring in a hired gun to make sure you are adequately protected against the forces of evil on the Internet and beyond.<\/p>\n

Ben Sherwood, a privacy adviser and chief of Sherwood Personal Security, is one of those hired guns, a leader of a team of mercenaries skilled in the arts of computer security, intrusion detection and network integrity. Sherwood \u2013 who lives in Milwaukee and whose company is based in Oak Brook, Ill. \u2013 said his small team analyzes the technology its clients use, finds the privacy and security problems and then recommends remedies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people have no concept of security,\u201d said Sherwood, a 28-year-old with clean-cut, Boy Scout looks. \u201cI try to give them options to fit their situations.\u201d Many of Sherwood\u2019s clients are small-business owners, corporate executives or professionals who handle sensitive information, such as lawyers, doctors and accountants. They\u2019re people who can\u2019t afford to have the information they handle fall into the wrong hands, or they\u2019re concerned about identity theft. And they have good reasons to be wary.<\/p>\n

Identity theft abounds<\/strong>
\nIdentity theft accounts for 40% of consumer-fraud complaints and surpasses other areas of fraud, such as sham Internet auctions, according to the Federal Trade Commission. An FTC clearinghouse set up to log complaints about identity theft fielded 86,000 last year, which was up 178% from 2000.<\/p>\n

The people who commit these crimes get information about their victims in a variety of ways, from simple schemes like rooting through their garbage, to sophisticated high-tech methods like exploits in computer software or hacking tools called Trojan horses. These programs \u2013 which pretend to be benign \u2013 often unleash viruses, record users\u2019 passwords or open \u201cback doors\u201d into the systems they\u2019ve infected so hackers can access them remotely.<\/p>\n

Sherwood said some of juiciest targets for attacks on their technology security and privacy usually don\u2019t monitor their computer and Internet habits, and many who do often make mistakes. \u201cThere has to be a security policy that goes along with any security products you have in place,\u201d Sherwood said, mentioning a client who regularly ran a spyware detection program on his computer but failed to keep its database updated. Sherwood mentioned other customers who had downloaded some security software needed to keep themselves safe but failed to install it.<\/p>\n

Spyware tracks every move<\/strong>
\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen some pretty serious breaches in security,\u201d said Sherwood, a former sales engineer and privacy program adviser for CyberSafe Corp. based in Issaquah, Wash. \u201cYou\u2019d be surprised by the number of key-logging programs I\u2019ve found on people\u2019s computers. They had no idea, and these programs put your online communications at risk\u201d because they can capture every keystroke made on a computer.<\/p>\n

Sherwood examines the home and office computing environments, checks any network settings, scans the computers for vulnerabilities such as spyware or viruses, updates the operating system and inspects security programs in place. He also scrutinizes the user\u2019s computing practices. For example, do they let their software remember their passwords? What type of information is stored on the computer? Does only one person use the machine, or is it shared?<\/p>\n

After the flaws are found, Sherwood sells the solutions to fix them, whether it\u2019s a biometric device used to store and access passwords on a PC, encryption software or accounts with Internet services that give users some anonymity.
\n
\nA satisfied customer<\/strong>
\nWhile most of Sherwood\u2019s customers want to keep a low profile and not speak to the press about his services, Tracy L. Coenen<\/strong>, a forensic accountant at Sequence Inc. in Milwaukee, said she was pleased after he came in and performed a privacy assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what he does is fabulous because a lot of people are unaware of the threats on the Net,\u201d said Coenen, whose company handles a lot of sensitive information in its financial investigations. \u201cI think it is cost-effective to have someone like Ben come in and take a look at what is in place.\u201d Coenen\u2019s company had a strong privacy and security policy in place, but Sherwood suggested some equipment and service that would make her Internet activity anonymous and make her less susceptible to attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing things like password-protecting the computers and password-protecting sensitive documents, and I didn\u2019t send sensitive information over e-mail,\u201d Coenen said. \u201cI consider myself very computer savvy, but Ben was able to point out some things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel By Stan Miller Sometimes, technology privacy and security are so important that you bring in a hired gun to make sure you are adequately protected against the forces of evil on the Internet and beyond. Ben Sherwood, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2777,2778],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forensic-accountant","category-media-profiles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-4ei","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}