Posted by Kerry Loftus

I drove my 13-year-old and his friends to one of their activities recently (yes, I have a minivan) and their conversation was really interesting and eye opening. I quickly called my gal pals in Erie, PA to find out if they were hearing the same and got the affirmative so this is not just a 'valley' phenomena. All of our kids are online and many are using various email, IM and social networking applications. Did you know that they all know each other's usernames and passwords? If they don't know the password part, they can very quickly guess (I chimed in at one point and asked them if they knew anything about 'strong passwords'-- most of them replied that they just use 'password'!). They didn't really think protecting the information was important.

It's probably harmless to sign in as your friend on IM and send one of the girls in your class a provocative message, but couldn't that be the tip of the iceberg? What about online...

Posted by Vicente Silveira, Sr. Product Manager for VIP Fraud Detection Service

The never ending parade of consumer data leakage and the inevitable fraud that follows added another participant this week with the Hannaford incident. This time, the damage amounts to 4.2 million credit and debit cards being compromised. It is early to tell all the ramifications of this incident, but the unraveling already started with the first salvo of class-action lawsuits against Hannaford.

When I see something like this happen, I'm always left to wonder: what is the true cost of a fraud incident ?

Looking back to some of the high-water mark incidents of the past we can have some hints of what the direct cost involved may look like. Take TJ Maxx for example: back in...

Posted by Jen Gilburg, Director of Business Development for Identity and Authentication Solutions

I have a confession to make. I was almost a victim of fraud.

It involved Craig's List, the selling of a refrigerator, a random check for $3000 over the amount being sent for payment, the panic of the buyer for overpaying and them begging me to 'Western Union' them the erroneous overpayment once I cashed the check. I was even 'offered' $200 of the overpayment for my troubles.

I am embarrassed to admit- I got all the way to the bank. I actually deposited the check- then in a last minute of "this doesn't seem right" had them run the check and low and behold...

Truth is I was taken off guard, in the middle of a move, not really paying attention-- just happy to have the refrigerator out of my garage.

What is mortifying is that I have been working in security sector of high tech for the last 20 years. The fact I didn't immediately rip up the...

Posted by Kerry Loftus, Vice President of Consumer Authentication

I am constantly evaluating our offerings and other technology solutions, asking: will this really play in my hometown of Erie, PA? The challenge for security vendors has always been there but have we delivered solutions that provide a broad spectrum of security for our customers depending on their needs, risks and users? Two years ago, when the FFIEC guidance around multifactor authentication came out, our customers told us we hadn't. Companies like VeriSign quickly innovated to find that right balance between security, usability, and convenience. Device IDs, images, networked authentication and a whole host of convenient 2-factor credentials emerged and the race is on to find that next game- changing security solution.

We at VeriSign believe there are two critical pieces to this moving forward:

1. Open standards. In other words: two-factor authentication solutions from...