Identity Crimes (Theft, Compromise & Misuse) with Mona Terry

“The best way to protect your accounts is to have unique passwords and passphrases along with multi-factor authentication.” - Mona Terry Share on X

When you search for customer service numbers online, you might come across a scammer’s number instead. It’s important to be cautious when sharing personal information, and to verify identities before responding to requests for sensitive data. 

Today’s guest is Mona Terry. As Chief Victims Officer at Identity Theft Resource Center, she navigates the complexities of identity protection and identity crime recovery and management of multi-million dollar federal grants. She analyzes victim experiences to create ITRC’s Identity Report and to provide information about new and ongoing trends in identity crimes.

“We’re seeing an uptick in impersonation scams. It’s where scammers are pretending to be businesses.” - Mona Terry Share on X

Show Notes:

• [0:55] – Mona describes her role as Chief Victims Officer at Identity Theft Resource Center and how she found herself in this job.
• [3:18] – Identity crimes include theft, compromise, and misuse. What’s the difference?
• [4:26] – The number one recorded compromise is through scams, where people give their information to someone else.
• [5:30] – It is also becoming more common for someone to search for a customer service number and come across a scammer’s number instead.
• [7:01] – Some of the strategies in detecting fake websites are not helpful any longer with scammers using AI tools to make things look more legitimate.
• [10:10] – Misuse is when someone else takes over your account and is making charges or establishing new accounts in your name.
• [11:41] – Account takeovers don't only include credit cards. Social media account takeovers can be just as dangerous and more common.
• [13:28] – Identity theft is what it sounds like—stealing information with the intent to misuse it.
• [15:24] – If you suspect something is compromised, Mona recommends freezing your credit account.
• [16:45] – Freezing your account and checking credit reports is easier than it used to be.
• [19:32] – Mona describes how the Identity Theft Resource Center walks victims through the steps in resolving problems.
• [21:23] – Some situations are harder to resolve than others.
• [23:51] – Team members at Identity Theft Resource Center are not therapists, but they are trauma informed and listen to victims as they are guided through a process.
• [26:27] – When working with the Identity Theft Resource Center, clients get a recovery plan.
• [29:08] – If victims have tried something or don’t feel comfortable with something, ITRC can step in and help.
• [31:50] – Don’t be afraid to check for problems. Sometimes problems don’t show themselves immediately.

“The number one recorded compromise is through scams.” - Mona Terry Share on X

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review. 

Links and Resources:

• Podcast Web Page
• Facebook Page
• whatismyipaddress.com
• Easy Prey on Instagram
• Easy Prey on Twitter
• Easy Prey on LinkedIn
• Easy Prey on YouTube
• Easy Prey on Pinterest
• Identity Theft Resource Center Website

Transcript:

Mona, thank you so much for coming on the Easy Prey Podcast today.

Thanks so much for having me. Glad to be here.

I'm looking forward to this. Can you give myself and the audience a little bit of background about who you are and what you do?

Sure. My name is Mona Terry. I am the Chief Victims Officer at the Identity Theft Resource Center. My job is really to provide high-level oversight over our contact center. It's really looking at the types of identity crimes that are being reported to the ITRC, analyzing what the trends are, what are some things that we're seeing with preventative and protection methods, and then, creating training material internally and then creating content externally as well, so people know how to protect their identities and how to recover.

That's awesome. How did you get into this field?

I actually started at the Better Business Bureau. I started doing consumer protection in general right out of college, and I got bitten by the consumer protection bug, as I like to say. I had an opportunity to work with the ITRC, so I've been here for almost nine years. For me, it's knowing that people are vulnerable and then being preyed upon for that vulnerability. It's just something that really makes me angry. It makes me upset. Anything that we can do to help support, that's really what drives and motivates me. Analyzing the trends and getting ahead of those so that people are better protected, that's just really important to me.

Cool. How big is the ITRC now as far as staffing?

We're pretty small. We're a grand total of 15 people, helping those from between 10,000 and 13,000 people, new victims of identity theft every year.

You're almost a thousand cases per employee or per person.

Yeah.

Are they employees, volunteers, or a mix of both?

Employees.

That's half a dozen cases a day or so?

Yeah, definitely more.

Wow. That's an overwhelming tidal wave to work through. Are you guys self-funded in terms of a charity, or do you have state and local support?

We are a 501(c)(3). We do have federal grants that we receive from Department of Justice, Office of Victims of Crime, and then we also have sponsors and partners.

Cool. Let's talk about what's going on with identity theft. Can you define identity theft for the audience?

Yeah. We actually have started to talk about identity theft as identity crimes. We break it down into three sections. There's identity theft, which is the actual stealing of someone's identity. There's identity compromise, where someone's identity has been stolen by someone else. Maybe someone accidentally gave out their information, thinking they were talking to someone who was trusted. Nothing has happened yet, but they know that their information is out there and can be misused. There's identity misuse, which is where a thief has actually taken that information, is opening new accounts or taking over existing accounts, and really out there actively pretending to be someone else.

Got you. Let's work through the process like with the compromise. Where are the situations where people are seeing the compromise happening?

The number-one thing that we've seen a real big uptick in is what we're calling impersonation scams. It's where the scammers are pretending to be businesses, funny enough. -Mona Terry Share on X

The number-one reported type of compromise is through scams, unfortunately. Usually, it's someone who thinks they're talking to someone legitimate, whether it's a government agency, a friend, a business they do business with, and they're giving out personal information thinking that something has happened they need to give that information out. That's when they'll call us and say, “Hey, I gave out all this personal information, and now I'm worried that something might happen with that information.”

Got you. Is there a particular scam that is trendy but more prevalent currently, or is it still the general mix?

It is the general mix. We start to see the things like romance scams and things like that. The number-one thing that we've seen a real big uptick in is what we're calling impersonation scams. It's where the scammers are pretending to be businesses, funny enough. Usually, it's government agencies we've seen a lot in the past, scammers trying to be Social Security Administration or IRS. Now we're seeing a lot of scammers pretend to be a business that someone does business with, or a financial institution that someone may interact with as well. They're either sending fake invoices, they’re pretending to be from the fraud department and say, “Hey, something fraudulent happened,” but it's really a scammer.

The biggest thing we're seeing, which is a trend that we're watching, is that people are googling customer service phone numbers and coming up with the scammer. They think they're actually talking to the business, but they're really talking to the scammer.

The biggest thing we're seeing, which is a trend that we're watching, is that people are googling customer service phone numbers and coming up with the scammer. They think they're actually talking to the business, but they're… Share on X

That's challenging because historically, we've generally told people if someone else initiates the phone call, always have a certain amount of distrust when you didn't initiate it. But if you need to visit their website and get their phone number, how are the fake phone numbers getting into that process?

A lot of times, it's through advertisements. A lot of times. The scammers can now purchase advertising on search engines. Those are popping up at the top of the search. I think that really knowing how to scroll through search engine searches is important. I'd say that's probably the number-one way.

We're seeing a lot of ads. Even with things like typical advice that we see with emails and with websites, there's a lot of misspellings. Poor English, things like that were typical things. Now with AI, they're getting a lot better about looking legitimate using proper grammar, and proper English. It's getting a little bit harder, but that's usually what we're seeing.

I guess the advice is make sure you've got the right website or that you're looking at a physical mail statement that is a legitimate statement from that entity that you're dealing with.

Yes, exactly. If you have a card, on the back of the card, there's contact information usually too.

Yeah. I have yet to hear fake credit cards being mailed out with fake phone numbers on the back.

Yeah, knock on wood.

Yeah. Tomorrow we're both going to get a credit card with a fake phone number on the back.

Right.

The issue here is making sure that you're not giving out your personal information unless you're very confident that you're working with the right entity, and that if you're calling someone, you're making sure that you're getting a hold of the right company that you're trying to deal with.

I think these scammers have gotten so good about getting into people's heads, so they create this sense of urgency, whether it's through email, whether it's on a chat, whether it's through text message, call. -Mona Terry Share on X

Yeah. I think it's hard. I think these scammers have gotten so good about getting into people's heads, so they create this sense of urgency, whether it's through email, whether it's on a chat, whether it's through text message, call. I think people want to do the right thing. Victims want to do the right thing. I want to do the right thing. I don't want to be scammed, or I don't want someone to be taking advantage of me. I think that not being afraid to say, “You know what? I'm going to call you back,” and verifying who it is that you're talking to, and make sure that you have the right number. That goes a long way.

Yeah, and not trusting the caller ID. A friend of mine got a phone call from someone claiming to be his bank. He looked at the caller ID and it matched. They claimed to be calling from the fraud department and started going down this process. He thought it was a little odd, but something previously had happened. It wasn't entirely unexpected that he might get a call from the fraud department. At some point they said, “Hey, we're going to send you a PIN code, and we need just to confirm that you are who you're talking about.”

He gets the PIN code along with a message that says, “Under no circumstances, give this to anyone on the phone.” He's like, “Oh, my goodness. This isn't the real company. This isn't really my bank.”

Yeah. I had a friend who actually was contacted by her local sheriff's department. It was the name of an actual sheriff, it was the right phone number, everything, saying that there was a warrant out for her arrest and all of these. She was really concerned.

“Don't tell anyone. If you tell someone, you'll jeopardize this case.” She told her husband who was right behind her. He called the sheriff's department. He said, “You're the fifth call we've gotten in the past 15 minutes about this scam.” Luckily, they had that wherewithal. They had two different phones, so someone was there with her to be able to make that call.

Yeah, I think this comes back to when someone's telling you not to talk to someone else about this, that should be something that is really concerning. Why are they trying to isolate you?

Right. I think victims feel a lot of shame themselves. They're already predisposed to not want to tell anyone that something's happening to them. When the scammers reinforce that, it's usually a big red flag.

Yeah, that's awful. What do you classify as misuse, and how does someone identify that? What are the scams involved in misuse?

Misuse for us is usually either account takeover. You have, maybe, a credit card account, and someone's making charges that are not yours and not something that's authorized. We've seen with IRS accounts too, someone filing taxes in your name. Anywhere where you would have an account, even if it's a retailer, anywhere where you have an account. There's account takeover with someone. You have an illegitimate account established in your name that someone is misusing. Someone's getting in there making charges, not you. There are new accounts being established in your name.

We've seen an uptick in bank accounts actually being established in people's names. Credit card accounts. Typically it's checking and credit card accounts that we see with new accounts being established, but we've seen insurance accounts. We've seen mortgage accounts. We've seen a number of accounts being established in someone else's name. We've seen a lot of medical  accounts being established. Those are primarily….Misuse is also someone committing a crime using your information and then someone obtaining employment using your information. That's usually what we consider misuse.

Misuse is also someone committing a crime using your information and then someone obtaining employment using your information. That's usually what we consider misuse. -Mona Terry Share on X

It's probably the most common misuse. Periodically, I start seeing fraudulent charges showing up on my credit card. It's like, “OK, someone got my credit card number, guessed the card number, or breached some database somewhere.” I know they don't physically have my card. They don't have access to any of my accounts; they're just using a credit card. Is that the most common misuse, or is it account takeovers?

Yeah, it's definitely account takeovers. I would say a lot of social media account takeover as well. That's another big trend that we've seen. I think that it's challenging for people because they have a lot of their personal information like pictures and things like that they don't have access to. For a lot of people, they use their social media as a source of income. They're selling things, and they have their own business. We've seen a lot of social media accounts takeover.

Yeah. Since we're talking about that as prevalent, what's the best way to protect your social media accounts or any accounts for that matter?

The best way is to have unique passwords. If you have a chance to do passkeys, using unique phrases. One of the examples I like to give is, for example, if my dog goes shopping on a pet store site, I might say, “Fido's favorite store.” throw in a couple of extra characters in there. Just something I can remember, but definitely unique passphrases is the best way to do that, and then multi-factor authentication, if you have a chance to get the code texted to you. More secure having an authenticator app that changes those every once in a while. Those are probably the easiest ways to protect your accounts.

Yes. This is for the audience: If anyone says SMS is not a secure, is not a good two-factor authentication, yes, that's true, but it's a whole heck of a lot better than no two-factor. I would rather have someone use a low-quality, two-factor authentication versus no second-factor identity authentication.

Agreed.

Extra security is better than no extra security.

Exactly.

What then is identity theft?

Identity theft is really when someone steals your identity, so just like as it sounds. That's anyone they can get it from. Data breach information that's been leaked anywhere. Physical theft is still alive and well. People are going into mailboxes and stealing mail. They're stealing wallets and purses, breaking into cars and getting paperwork that's been left to the cars. Really, any information that's been stolen is identity theft.

That's more where they are assuming your identity so that they have enough information to open new accounts to pretend to be you, that thing.

Yeah, correct. They're stealing that information with the intent to misuse it and to pretend to be you.

I guess we didn't talk about the signs of misuse. We'll take a step back. The signs of misuse would be you're seeing charges on your credit cards that you weren't expecting or seeing new accounts created. What would be the signs that someone might be seeing of identity theft?

That one's a little harder, I think. Knowing that your information has been stolen is a lot harder to track. I think that you have to be vigilant for those, the actual misuse, accounting, or someone getting a letter saying someone opened an account in your name. If you know that you've been a victim of physical theft, someone's broken into the mailboxes, someone's stolen your wallet. Other than that, knowing that someone has stolen your information, other than it showing up in dark web monitoring, maybe, or being notified by someone, it's really hard to track.

Got you. Are there ways that you can mitigate the impact of people getting enough information to create accounts on your behalf?

We also encourage people to freeze their credit so that no one can open up new accounts in your name with your Social Security number. That is probably the number one advice other than using multi-factor authentication on all your… Share on X

Yeah. Especially because we see financial accounts is the number-one type of account that's being taken over. We also encourage people to freeze their credit so that no one can open up new accounts in your name with your Social Security number. That is probably the number one advice other than using multi-factor authentication on all your accounts, the things we've already talked about. Those are the biggest ways to protect your information.

I know when freezing your credit first came out, it was a pretty cumbersome process. You actually had to pay the credit bureaus money to freeze your credit. Is that still the case now?

It's not. You actually can do it for free. You can actually check your credit report often as well. You don't have to pay for that either. Right now, I believe you can check it weekly. The process to freeze your credit has definitely become a lot easier. You can do it online. You can call if you need to call and if you needed to. If you don't have access to either of those options, or they still work for you, then you can still submit paperwork and send it in the mail. That's probably the least secure. We don't want people sending information via mail, if we can help it.

Nowadays, it used to be as many hoops as you had to jump through to freeze your credit, you had to jump through all the same hideous hoops to unfreeze your credit. Then you had to jump through all the hoops to refreeze it again and repay it. My understanding is a lot of them now will do a timed thaw, I guess, or something like that, where we'll unfreeze your credit for a day, a week, or a month, whenever you decide. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct. You can do it for a certain time frame. You can do it sometimes for certain creditors. If you know you're applying for a loan with a specific company, you can say, “I just want to thaw credit for this specific company to access for this amount of time.”

That sounds like a much better way to go. You're basically saying, “I'm going to keep my credit all locked down, except for this situation that I know about and for them and them only.”

Yeah, that's definitely the most secure. A lot of people don't know, too, you can actually freeze your child's credit report as well, which is something that's really useful.

A lot of people don't know, too, you can actually freeze your child's credit report as well, which is something that's really useful. -Mona Terry Share on X

I guess it'll be a lot more challenging to notice if your minor child's credit has been compromised or taken over. You probably wouldn't even notice that until they try to get credit.

Usually, that's the case. Unless you start seeing something, like you see credit cards appear in their name in the mail, applications, or things like that. Mostly when a child's Social Security number has been compromised where they go to apply for benefits, and they're denied those benefits for their child because it shows that they're working, that they're bringing income, and things like that. Usually, most people don't think to check that because a child shouldn't have a credit report.

How young can you freeze a child's credit?

As soon as they have a Social Security number assigned to them.

Would the advice be as soon as your kid has a Social Security number, freeze their credit?

I would say so, yeah. It should be the most secure, absolutely.

They're not going to need it for a few years.

Yes.

Once someone has become a victim of identity theft, whether it's a compromise, a misuse, or someone's impersonating, what steps should they take to start to deal with it?

I think it really depends. I would say contact the identity resource center. I think that's always an easy way to do that because, really, we're going to walk through what was compromised, what was misused, what is being misused. I think it really depends on what information is out there, what accounts are being impacted, and what does that impact to the person specifically. If it's someone's bank account, that's going to be maybe a lot more serious because readily access to cash than a credit card account, things like that.

I would say to contact the ITRC so we can walk you through that, but it's really just identifying where the identity theft is happening and what account is being impacted. We're seeing driver's licenses too. We've seen people who have gone to renew the driver's license and aren't able to because the driver's license is opened in their name in another state. Obviously, that's going to be very impactful. That's something they may want to address first if they're noticing multiple issues.

We've seen people who have gone to renew the driver's license and aren't able to because the driver's license is opened in their name in another state. -Mona Terry Share on X

Got you. Does the ITRC do that work for them, or do you walk them through that? What does that look like?

Actually, we walk people through the steps to take. We don't want to be a source for identity information for other people to get to. We won't ask for that type of information. We don't ask for account numbers, anything like that, any personal information. What we do is we serve as someone to walk alongside the victim who's trying to recover their identity to protect their identity, so that if they get stuck in a process, if they're not understanding what they've been told, we can serve as that resource to go to to help for as long as it takes. Whether it takes one day, one month, one year, longer. We’ve had a few people who have had multiple issues over multiple years; we will just continue to be that resource to walk alongside that person. Knowing that we've been in this space for a while and know what to do, we'll walk alongside them to do that.

How much work does it generally take someone to unravel an incident?

Unfortunately, it takes a lot. There's paperwork to fill out and if it's multiple instances. Also, if it's your Social Security number, the potential for then other types of identity theft, even if you've only contacted us about one specific type is there. There are steps to just not only recover from the specific issue that's happening, but then thinking about what you need to protect yourself from other things happen. It can take a while.

Can you put a time window on a while? It is an issue of setting expectations for people in terms of, “Oh, yeah. This is something I can take care of in a couple hours, and my life will be fine.” Or, “This is something that's going to maybe I won't be spending hours a day for several months, but all the steps might just, with the back and forth, take a couple months to happen.”

Yeah. I think with account takeover, I'd say anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on how bad the account takeover is. It's usually easier if you've established the account in your name, you already have that established, and someone's coming into that account and doing things that they're not supposed to do.

It's a lot easier to recover from that, especially with financial institutions. If someone's opened a new account in your name and they've pretended to be you this entire time, that usually will take probably up to six months, if not longer, because now you have to jump through the hoops of proving that you're the actual person, not the thief that was able to open the account in your name and then getting that part resolved. Depending on the backlog of the institution that you're contacting, that can take three-to-six months, but we've had a lot of people say it's been a year or longer.

If it is an issue, where someone has been using a Social Security number to earn income and either short pay or not pay their taxes, how long does it take to unravel tax issues on the state and the federal level?

I think on the state level, we don't get a lot of information about people running into issues on the state level; I'd say that takes anywhere up to a year. With the IRS, it can take two years or more. It just depends on where they're at and what happened with your IRS filing.

Wow, that's tough. I think most people will expect, “If my identity was able to be compromised quickly, my resolution should be quick.” But it sounds like we're not there yet.

No, not yet. I think that's why it's so impactful. I think that's why identity cards are so impactful, because not only do you have to live your daily life and go through all the regular things, but now you're trying to fight this identity theft issue that takes a lot of time and takes time away from your family, from friends, from your personal, from your work. That's part of the reason why we're here also. It's just so that you know you have someone to support you through that and know that you're not alone.

Yeah, someone who knows, “OK, this is the 65-step process.”

Right, let's start step one.

We're going to start at step one today as opposed to thinking, “Well, I could resolve all this in one phone call and go on with my life.”

Right.

That's challenging. In talking with people, do you guys provide any emotional support as well, or is it just the practical, “Here are the steps that you need to take, but if you're feeling ashamed, go talk to someone, talk to a professional”?

I think that we're not trained therapists, but we do listen. I think that we're trauma-informed, and I think we care. I know we do. We generally care about the people who come to us. I think that it helps just to be a sounding board and say, “Look, I'm scared, I'm worried. I don't know what's going to happen.” You're going to have an empathetic view when you talk to someone at ITRC because we run into this a lot. A lot of us have been victims ourselves at one point or another. We understand the challenges that can be faced, the time that it takes, and all of those things. Really, I think that while we are action-oriented—we want to empower people to take action—we’re also happy to just listen.

Is one of the impediments of people moving forward is that first call of people might be internally thinking, like swallowing their pride and the embarrassment of it when they really shouldn't be embarrassed, because very likely it could have nothing to do with anything that they did wrong?

Yeah, absolutely. There's absolutely a lot of shame around it. I cannot believe this happened to me. People are like, “I'm smarter than this. I know better than this.” We've had a lot of people contact us six months, a year after an incident has happened. It's gotten to the point where it's bad enough. They felt like they needed to reach out for help. That's what we hear.

“I cannot believe that I knew better.” “I can't believe this happened to me. I'm doing everything right.” There's nothing that's a big piece of it too, but I also think it's just overwhelming, thinking, “I don't even know where to start.” Or, “If I do know where to start, this feels like it's just a lot. I already have a lot going on in my life to have to deal with this too. It's just a lot.” That sometimes is an impediment as well, which is why we're here to say, you know what? Even if it’s, like you said, a 65-step process, we're here. Let's start with step one. We're in it together.

Got you. Do you guys provide not just phone support, but do you provide support in the sense of, “OK, if you've had this type of compromise or this type of theft, we'll send you a PDF, or send you the processes so you can work on through it yourself”? Or is it the thing that you only do it over the phone, one step at a time, handholding, or do you provide a self-service of, “Here's all the steps; call us if you need help”?

Yeah, it's really up to the person who's contacting us. What we do is when they call us and we figure out what's going on and what the main issues are, we come up with a recovery plan for that person. We send a copy of that recovery plan. That person can either take those steps on their own, call us if they're having issues. If they're like, “This is too much.” “OK, let's start with step one. We'll walk through it.” Everyone gets a recovery plan and then how they want to manage that plan going forward, whether they want to themselves or with our support to lead, is up to them.

Got you. Tailored to their circumstances as well as tailored to how they want to move forward.

Exactly.

Got you. Do you guys work much with law enforcement and referring people to law enforcement?

We do. A lot of times, a law enforcement report is needed to prove that someone's a victim of identity theft, but we also provide support to law enforcement saying, “Hey, if you're getting reports directly to you as law enforcement, you're doing your investigations, and you don't have as many resources to provide to that victim, they can refer those to us as well.” We work together. While the law enforcement is doing what they need to do on their end—issuing the reports, doing the investigations—we can walk the victims through the practical day-by-day steps and different things that they need to do. We can provide the ongoing support where the police departments may not have as much resources.

Got you. Have you found, as time has gone by, getting support from the police departments in terms of, yes, they'll even take a report? Has that gotten easier over the years?

It's mixed. I think we've heard that for some people, it is a lot easier, and I know some people can even just go online and file those police reports. We still hear people who run into a lot of challenges with getting a police report.

Yeah. Unfortunately, some police departments will say, “Well, someone stole your credit card; there's nothing we can do about it. Just call your credit card company.

Right. We do hear that. We do have victims come to us and tell us that has been more experienced. A lot of times, we use that as an education piece too, putting on our advocate hat a little bit, and contacting that police department saying, “Hey, we have a victim of identity theft. They need a police report to move forward. What can we do to help make this happen?”

Is that something that helps when the victim is empowered with, “Go to your police department. Ask for them to do this, and tell them X, Y, or Z”? “Hey, I've been told that I need a police report in order to do this next step in recovering my identity. I don't necessarily expect you to go out and try to find the person; I just need a report.”

Yeah, right. We'll give them that, even if they're talking to fraud departments. “Here, say these things. Let them know this is where you're at in the process and what you need from them,” and empowering the victim to do that. We do now are offering this service, where if victims have either tried that and have not been successful, or they don't feel comfortable pushing that hard, we are happy to step in and go, “Hey, if you're running into a barrier, we can try and help you overcome that barrier.”

That's great. If people want to find the Identity Theft Resource Center, how do they find you guys?

The best way is through our website, idtheftcenter.org. People can chat with us there. There are phone numbers there. They can submit an email. They can submit a form online. I mean, short of carrier pigeon, really. Going to the website is the best place to start, and then they can reach us from there.

Do you guys provide any reports about what's going on, industry trends, or anything like that?

We do. We have our trends and identity report that comes out annually. That talks about the trends that we're seeing in identity theft and what is being reported to the ITRC. We have our consumer impact report that talks about the non-financial impacts that identity theft has on victims, and we have a data breach report. We have about three or four annual reports. People can even sign up for a newsletter, if they'd like.

Half jokingly, I assume your data breach report is just absolutely massive, unfortunately.

It is. It's a conglomeration of all the publicly reported data breaches, the attack vectors, what types of information, and how many victims have been reported.

Yeah. You and I were joking before we started recording. I think we, between the two of us, we almost daily are getting breach notifications. “There’s a lawsuit against a company who had a breach.” Or, “Here's another year of free identity theft monitoring.” I probably have 40 years’ worth now.

Same. Yeah. It's definitely a problem that isn't going away anytime soon, I don't think.

Do you guys recommend identity theft, either insurance or monitoring?

It's like washing your car. You can pay someone to do that for you, or you can do it yourself. It's really up to where a person's at and whether they’d rather have someone else monitor that information, or they'd like to learn how to do it themselves.

Either way, it should be done, either you do it yourself or have someone do it for you.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely keep an eye on all your accounts and your credit.

I guess that's the thing. If you're not getting notified that there's been a problem, that doesn't mean there hasn't been a problem.

Right. Don't be afraid to check too, like, I think something, but I don't want to know. I don't want to know that something's happened. Obviously, there's a resource that's available. There are many resources available. If you do find something, we can start before they come.

Awesome. If people want to connect with you, how can they best connect with you?

LinkedIn is a great way to connect. Happy to connect with people on LinkedIn.

Awesome. We'll make sure to link to all those resources and your LinkedIn account in the show notes. Mona, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Thank you. This was a great conversation.