Beware Identity Theft, It Can Affect Travel Agencies Too
by Michele McDonald /Raise your hand if you’ve ever said or heard these words at a conference: “Oh, I think it’s okay to leave your laptop in here during the break. No one will bother it.”
Keep your hand up if you left your laptop behind as you went for a cup of coffee. That’s so your knuckles can be easily rapped.
The creepiest moment at the recent TravelConnect, the Airlines Reporting Corp.’s (ARC) first customer conference, was the admission by John D. Sileo, a speaker at the event, that he had laid his hands on no fewer than 24 electronic devices left at the ballroom tables during a coffee break.
Gasps could be heard, and the discomfort in the room was palpable.
Sileo, who had a witness during the exercise, did not go beyond simply touching the devices. He didn’t have to.
He had made his point.
Oh, you trusting souls
Any guy in a suit can wander through a ballroom during a coffee break and have access to a large pile of laptops, tablets, smart phones, and other devices.
Even worse, he can have access to the mountain of data contained within those devices.
Now, again, raise your hand if you have not applied that most fundamental of protections – a password -- to one or more of your electronic devices.
First-hand experience
Sileo, author of Privacy Means Profit: Prevent Identity Theft and Secure You and Your Bottom Line, gained his expertise on the topic the hard way. His identity was stolen—not once, but twice.
The first time, it was used to buy a house in Florida. When “Rosemary,” the bogus owner, defaulted on the mortgage, Sileo was held liable.
As he fought back, he lost his family business, hundreds of thousands of dollars and precious time with his young daughters.
By the time Sileo finally got beyond it all, he had learned some lessons.
“Rosemary was a gift,” Sileo said. She taught him to see the value of the data the bad guys are going after. “It’s not the data, it’s the money,” he said.
Travel agencies beware
And it’s not just about personal funds. Owners of small businesses -- travel agencies, for example -- can be particularly vulnerable, especially when it comes to issues of trust.
Sileo’s former business partner taught him a few things about trust when he committed embezzlement using Sileo’s identity. Sileo narrowly avoided prison time for the crime.
Cybersecurity always begins with the human element and that’s also where it is resolved – or not, said Sileo.
In the age of online retailing, online banking transactions and that great repository of the details of our every move – Facebook – we all need to work on our “hogwash” detectors, Sileo said.
And ‘hogwash’ is. . .
Many people receive telephone alerts from their banks regarding potentially fraudulent activity on their accounts. “But if the bank representative asks for your PIN, what do you say?” Sileo asked?
“Hogwash!” the audience shouted.
Similarly, if any online entity calls asking for “verification” of an account by providing your social security number, mother’s maiden name or other personal information, obey the Hogwash Meter.
Tell the person you will hang up and call the company to verify the identity
of the person who called you.