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When it comes to background checks, the National Crime Information Center is the gold standard. It is only available to law enforcement agencies and is the most accurate and complete database tracking convictions and arrests in the US. That sounds pretty great, right? Unfortunately, it’s not all as it seems.

The Department of Justice

The Department of Justice recently released a report based on a two-year study of convictions and arrests from 2016. The report shows that a very low percentage of co

Hackers and wannabe hackers can easily purchase cheap tools of the trade online. The security firm Dell SecureWorks Inc. confirms this in their latest report and adds that underground markets for hackers, including those from Russia, is thriving.

The “Dark Web” is the go-to place for hackers looking for guidance and tools like malware. Yes, you can buy malware. If you don’t want to be the hacker, you can hire a hacker.

There’s any number of reasons why a non-techy person would want to hire a hacke

A bug bounty refers to the reward a bad-guy hacker gets upon discovering a vulnerability, weakness or flaw in a company’s system.

This is akin to giving a reward to a burglar for pointing out weaknesses in your home’s security.

But whom better to ask than a burglar, right? Same with a company’s computer systems: The best expert may be the black hat or better, white hat hacker.

An article at bits.blogs.nytimes.com says that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, PayPal and Yahoo are on the roster of

Want to earn up to $4.2 million? Then find the hackers on the FBI’s most wanted list. Or at least give the FBI information leading to their arrest and/or conviction. These snakes have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars. Here is the list from the hackernews.com:

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev (reward: $3 million)

• Ironically, one of his aliases is one of the most common (and thus easily cracked) passwords: lucky12345.
• He’s the brains behind the GameOver Zeus botnet and CryptoLocker Ransomware.
• Over

Criminals use six basic principles to influence and steal. In the first post we discussed:

• Reciprocation: Do something nice for a person and they will feel obligated to return the favor.
• Social Proof: This is the “It’s okay if everyone else does it” approach.
• Commitment and Consistency: Get someone to verbally or in writing commit to something, and this will increase the chances they’ll follow through.

Robert Cialdini is a psychologist who studied influence for nearly 30 years, condensing his findin

Criminals use six basic principles of Influence to steal. In this post we will discuss the first 3. The ability to influence boils down to science. By applying some science, anyone can learn to be more influential. It’s easy to influence sheep and cattle. It’s a bit more complicated to influence people. But many people can be influenced as easy as a cow. Criminals understand this the same way sales people do. The derivative of “confidence” is con. All influence in some way is designed to gain yo

I remember my teachers always telling me there are no stupid questions. When it comes to identity theft, this is especially true. The more you know about identity theft, the better prepared you will be to prevent it from happening to you. Here are some commonly asked questions about identity theft.

What is identity theft?

Identity theft is when a person pretends to be you to access money, credit, medical care, and other benefits. They acquire your identity by stealing and using your personal infor