If you think a bad guy has to physically break into your home to steal from you, you might want to think again. As more devices in your home become connected to the Internet—the Internet of Things (IoT)—the more data they can gather about you like Social Security numbers, bank account, and credit card information.
That’s why cybercriminals are turning their attention to hacking into common household devices, including refrigerators, TVs, thermostats, and even baby monitors to crack your home network and gain access to valuable personal information.
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These are some of the common excuses that people make for bullying. What most people don’t realize is that bullying, like everything else, has evolved with technology. Twenty years ago, bullying primarily took place at school. Kids could escape at home, and find other groups of friends outside of school. Today, this escape no longer exists. Bullies can harass their victims 24/7 through the internet.
As adults, we have a responsibility to educate ourselves and our children about the severity of online bullying. We have created a guide to help you protect your children from being victims or perpetrators of cyber-bullying. Read more →
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A home burglary occurs once every 15 seconds in the United States and results in an average dollar loss of about $1,600. Sometimes, even though you’ve done everything right to protect your family and your home—including installing and using a home security system—the bad guys win. If you’re the victim of a burglary, you’re probably trying to figure out how you can get your stuff back.
Well, believe it or not there are some websites that can help you hunt down your items. Here are four of them to help you in your search:
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For those of us that consider ourselves occasional users of social media, we are usually pretty cautious about what we post. Even “checking-in” for a movie on Friday night, or “hash-tagging” at a summer concert, can provide a window of opportunity for a burglar. Most break-ins and robberies are committed by people the home owner knows. This means that someone looking to steal from you could easily be connected with you on social media.
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In an alarming statistic reported by Forbes, 42% of people in the United States have experienced some type of credit card fraud occurring to their account. After the card information has been stolen, an average amount of $5,000 in fraudulent activity occurs before the problem is fixed. Although credit card companies and banks are doing more to prevent this issue, it is, unfortunately, still up to the card holders to do as much as they can to prevent credit fraud.
We recently put together an infographic outlining the strange life of a stolen credit card — today we’d like to discuss our top 5 ways to prevent credit card fraud.
Credit card fraud is a frightening hazard of commerce in the modern age, spurred on by our increasing reliance on Internet shopping along with increasingly brazen in-person high-tech cloning operations. How do credit card numbers get stolen? What happens to those numbers once they are in the hands of thieves?
We’ve put together this infographic to help explain not just the mechanics of how your credit card number could end up being sold to the highest bidder, but also who is out there purchasing this illicitly-gained data and what they are willing to pay for it. Keep reading – the answers to these questions, and more, might surprise you.
https://www.americanalarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/American-Alarm_logo_1Xr.png00American Alarm Blogging Teamhttps://www.americanalarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/American-Alarm_logo_1Xr.pngAmerican Alarm Blogging Team2014-01-16 08:55:332014-01-16 08:55:33[Infographic] The Strange Life of a Stolen Credit Card
Urban legends — stories told around the office cooler, or at your child’s soccer game, or among friends after work — aren’t always harmless tales designed to provide a few scares or laughs the pass the time. Sometimes, urban legends that prove untrue can have individuals worried about scams or crimes that actually don’t exist, which makes it that much harder to believe in the occasionally sensational methods used by criminals that only sound like a tall tale.
Consider a recent report from the Today show about ‘sliders.’ This unlikely term has been applied to thieves who target women pumping gas into their cars. With the purse on the front seat, and their attention diverted to the act of fueling up, these women are victimized by individuals who emerge from a nearby parked car, stay low to the ground, and snatch the purse through either an open window or an unlocked door. Although it sounds incredible, police are warning women not to leave their purses unattended at gas stations unless all of their doors are locked and their windows are sealed.
There’s an old saying that has never applied more than in the internet age: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Each of us has probably seen some kind of offer online — a car that’s priced way below its market value, an email informing you that you’ve won a lottery you don’t remember entering, or a stranger detailing a plan to transfer a huge sum of cash into your bank account — that couldn’t possibly be real. Yet, despite all of the warning flags surrounding these types of ‘deals,’ there are still many individuals who find themselves taken in by scams that end up costing them thousands of dollars.
Westborough Policeare reminding people to be vigilant when dealing with unusual financial transactions or offers in order to protect themselves from both financial and potential identity theft as well. Offers to transfer money into your bank account — a portion of which you get to keep — are almost always bids from criminals to gain access to your banking details in order to defraud you.
The holidays are over and you may now have online gifts to return or exchange, so don’t forget about package delivery safety.
Packages are stolen each year, and reports of package thefts are appearing more and more in the headlines of our local news outlets. For example, on Monday, December 3, a group of Woburn, Mass. residents allegedly stole packages delivered to a home in Stoneham, Mass.
Also, Watertown, Mass. Police Lt. Michael Lawn is warning residents of the increase in packages stolen from doorsteps and apartment/condo lobbies.
“We have had a few reports recently and this is becoming a big problem especially around Christmas time when people are ordering many items online,” Lawn explains in a Patch.com article. “This is just not a problem in (apartment) buildings but also in residential neighborhoods. Police have caught people following delivery trucks and grabbing the boxes after they are delivered.”
Last year, the Wellesley, Mass. Police Department released this video after investigating several thefts of packages delivered to the front doors of residents’ homes.
So what can you do to avoid being a victim of this crime? Local police departments offer these three tips:
If you aren’t home during the day, send the package to a neighbor or relative who is home. Be sure that person knows ahead of time so she can be at home to accept the delivery.
Request a signature confirmation on each delivery so a package will not be left at its destination unless someone is present to sign for it.
Send packages to your work address instead of your home.
Check with your shipper for options. UPS offers My Choice, a service that alerts you by text or e-mail a day before the package is scheduled to arrive. You can reschedule the delivery for a different day or reroute the package to be delivered to a different address (a neighbor for example) if you won’t be home.
FedEx offers similar services, including allowing you to hold the package at a FedEx retail location for pickup, or you can go online and request to have the package delivered to your home within a specific delivery time window.
The USPS will hold mail for pick up under some circumstances. Talk to your local USPS office for further information. For instance, if you’re traveling during the holidays all USPS offices offer a hold mail service to keep your packages, and all your mail safe at one of their offices until you return.
Sidenote: Both FedEx and UPS are warning consumers about fraudulent e-mails this year. These e-mails may reference a failed delivery or a suspended account. They are actually “phishing” e-mails, even though they may appear legitimate and come complete with the company brand, logo or legal disclaimers.
These types of e-mails contain invalid hyperlinks that may contain malware, and could corrupt your computer. These are not legitimate e-mails, so if you receive one do not click on any links. Delete the e-mail. FedEx and UPS do not send unsolicited e-mails to customers requesting information regarding packages, payments, invoices, account numbers, passwords, financial information or personal information.
Read more about fraudulent e-mails at the FedEx and UPS websites.
Next Steps:
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After the Black Friday mayhem, comes Cyber Monday. And many shoppers will choose to shop online up until just a few days before Christmas.
A Harris Interactive/McAfee study tells us 70% of consumers will shop online during the holiday season, with one in four using a mobile device.
Whether you’re shopping online or just browsing the web this holiday season, you must remain aware of the many ways criminals can strike over the Internet. Increased web traffic presents more opportunities for criminals to strike unsuspecting victims. From stealing your credit card number to various scams, cybercriminals find ways to wreak all kinds of havoc. Read more →
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If you think a bad guy has to physically break into your home to steal from you, you might want to think again. As more devices in your home become connected to the Internet—the Internet of Things (IoT)—the more data they can gather about you like Social Security numbers, bank account, and credit card information.
A 
In an alarming statistic reported by 
