ID Vault is a client-based software product specifically designed to provide security for consumers when they bank and shop online. ID Vault provides protection against existing, new and emerging threats on the Internet by protecting users' credentials on the PC, automating the log in process and delivering safe access to online sites. ID Vault combines the benefits and ease of use of a password manager with multi-faceted 2 factor authentication security designed to protect online accounts.
Identity theft, online fraud and the related financial costs are major issues for consumers and financial service providers. Beginning with the advent of online banking, the number of consumers affected by cybercrime has grown significantly every year. According to Gartner Research, \"More than 5 million Americans lost money to Phishing schemes in 2008, a 40% increase from 2007.\"
The fastest growing category of malware is that which specifically targets consumers' online credentials. Bank Trojans, such as the Clampi worm, are one example of malware that is specifically designed to steal online banking data. According to Joe Stewart, Director of Malware Research for Secure Works, \"...it can take days or weeks to get a sample of the latest version of a Trojan, antivirus protection is often delayed, arriving after a PC is already infected. This specific type of Trojan and banking Trojans in general are the biggest threat to home computer users and businesses doing banking online. You can't rely on antivirus.\"
ID Vault provides secure, one-click access for consumers' online accounts. By protecting user’s credentials, automating the log in process and delivering safe access to online sites, ID Vault provides proactive protection against existing, new and emerging threats on the internet.
"; var pcont2 = "At White Sky, Inc., our mission is to protect
consumers from identity theft and online crime
when they are at their most vulnerable: when
they conduct financial transactions on the
Internet. With more than 40 million American
households now banking online, sophisticated
cybercriminals have turned their attention to
stealing consumers' identities as they bank,
shop and invest online. The beginnings of
White Sky, Inc. can be
traced back to a single
phone call Bill Loesch,
White Sky, Inc.'s founder, received from his mom.
In the fall of 2004, Bill Loesch's mother, Marina, called him to ask his advice about an email
she received from her bank. The email stated that the bank had experienced \"system security problems\" and provided a link that led to a Web page where she was to confirm her account information for \"security purposes.\"
\"It looks real,\" she told Bill, but the wording of the message seemed a bit odd, so she thought she'd check with Bill before providing her account information. Bill told his mom that she'd just been \"phished.\"
Ever the problem-solver, Bill began looking for a reliable way to avoid identity theft and online crime that his parents could use to protect their online finances. He quickly realized that there are lots of hardened security solutions available to enterprises for advanced identity theft protection, but none for consumers. Options for proactive pharming and phishing protection were also poor. Bill was convinced that it was time to bring the enterprise-proven security of hardware tokens to a consumer audience in an easy, convenient USB format.
Bill contacted a former colleague, Jerry Thompson, who immediately shared Bill's passion about tackling the problem, and White Sky, Inc. was born. They assembled a team of talented engineers and began work on an easy-to-use, convenient, smart card-based hardware solution to safeguard consumers against identity theft and online crime when they bank, shop and invest online.
In January of 2009, White Sky launched ID Vault 4.0 - a software-only download.
Today, ID Vault is used by tens of thousands of customers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. It is currently the only solution available to consumers that provides end-to-end protection against identity theft and online crime. ID Vault is available directly to consumers on our website www.idvault.com and through major partners.
White Sky, Inc. is dedicated to helping consumers fight ID theft. Browse our press releases below for company updates and to learn more about the latest identity theft protection methods.
"; var pcont4 = "David Watkins brings extensive experience as a senior executive and CEO at a number of publicly and privately held technology companies. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer for QSecure, a platform solution for securing credit card transactions where he raised two rounds of venture financing and signed contracts with 2 of the top 3 credit card issuers, and TrueSpectra, Inc., a server-based imaging solutions provider that was acquired in 2004. He was also President and Chief Operating Officer of Talk City/LiveWorld, Inc., a publicly traded, marketing services company where he led the transition from a consumer chat site to a marketing services company with contracts with many of the leading consumer brands including Disney, Time Warner, Microsoft, ABC News and others.
At Diamond Multimedia Systems, he was General Manager of the Multimedia Division which recorded annual sales of over $400 million. He co-founded and was President and Chief Executive Officer of RioPort, Inc. (a subsidiary of Diamond Multimedia Systems) the company that created the MP3 category and was the original market leader in 1999. Mr. Watkins served in a number of general management positions at Borland International, Inc. where he was responsible for over $200 million in annual revenue, and as Vice President and General Manager at Symantec, Inc. where he ran their database business growing it to over $75 million in less than 3 years.
David has a B.A. in economics from Connecticut College and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Mr. Watkins has served as a member of the board of directors of several publicly and privately held companies.
Jerry is the co-founder of White Sky Inc. Before co-founding White Sky, Inc. Jerry was President & CEO of the Vardi Group, a Worldwide Consumer Products company based in New York with facilities in Dallas, Bangkok, Hong Kong and China. During his 3 year tenure, Jerry managed the complete restructuring of the Company’s business, successfully re-capitalized, and turned the company from a significant loss to a profit in its most recent fiscal year. He then oversaw the sale of a large stake in the Company to a group of private investors.
Jerry was Vice President & General Manager of Systems Consumer Products Division with responsibilities for Sales, Marketing and e-Commerce. Under his leadership sales grew by more than 300% in a 4 year period and the company’s flagship product line, Studio, became the market leader in revenue and share.
Prior to Pinnacle Systems, Jerry served as Executive Vice President in charge of World Wide Sales, Product Development, Marketing, Channel Marketing and PR as well as overseeing all export sales from foreign manufacturing locations for Town & Country, Corp, a $435 million publicly held Company. Under his guidance, 42% of the company revenue was being generated outside of the USA. When Mr. Thompson joined Town & Country it was a privately held business doing just under $60 million in revenue. Mr. Thompson oversaw an organization that was spread from its Boston headquarters to Bombay, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, Germany and 6 satellite offices in the USA.
Mr. Thompson's career started at Parker Brothers, a division of the General Mills Corporation, where he rose to the position of Senior Vice President of Sales for this manufacturer and marketer of board games, children’s toys and video games.
He holds a BS in Finance from the University of Texas
Ira Scharfglass has spent over 25 years successfully managing organizations engaged in the development and delivery of applications and operating systems, ranging from firmware to complex, highly scalable applications and services. His experience includes responsibility for Development, QA, Support, Professional Services, Product Marketing, Tech Pubs, Business Planning, IT and Operations. Notable previous experience includes 5 years at Netscape Communications as Vice President, Development, where he was responsible for Electronic Commerce Products, International Operations and Applications for the Netcenter Web Portal.
He also spent 4 years at Phoenix Technologies, where he was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Worldwide Product Operations, where he was responsible for development of all of the company's firmware and applications products, as well as Professional Services.
Prior to White Sky, Scharfglass was Senior Vice President, Engineering at Sana Security, where he was responsible for development of the award-winning Primary Response product family. Ira holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Queens College of the City University of New York.
Pankaj has over 16 years experience in consumer software, retail and e-commerce. Most recently he was General Manager at ComplianceOnline.com, a Kleiner Perkins funded company, where he led 30% year over year revenue growth and moved the business unit from loss position to cash positive in 18 months. Prior to that he was Vice President of Customer Acquisition & Retention Marketing at McAfee, Inc. where he helped grow the business to several hundred million in sales in 5 years.
Prior to McAfee he was at BlueLight.com where he led the development of a national customer loyalty program for Kmart and launched multiple consumer programs. He has held senior management roles at several venture-backed companies where he helped build new businesses from the ground up.
Pankaj has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, India and holds an MBA from Iowa State University.
Martha Gilbertson joined White Sky in 2007 bringing with her over 14 years of software product management experience. Prior to White Sky, Martha served as Director of Product Management at Fair Isaac Corporation where she introduced new services offering FICO© scores to consumers. Martha joined Fair Isaac from MarkMonitor where she was Senior Vice President of Product Management. There she led MarkMonitor into a new market by launching the company's AntiFraud Solutions.
Previously, Martha served as VP Product Marketing where she defined, delivered and managed their award-winning set of managed hosting services. Martha also spent 8 years in a range of marketing and financial positions at Polaroid Corporation after starting her career with KPMG. Martha holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Babson College, both with honors.
Ajay is a General Partner at Trinity Ventures, a top-tier venture capital firm. Ajay has over 20 years of operating experience at the senior management and board level with start-ups, private companies and public companies. Based on his experiences, Ajay is passionate about helping entrepreneurs execute their Big Idea. Ajay is also well respected in the valley for his expertise in the digital media space.
Prior to joining Trinity Ventures, Ajay co-founded Pinnacle Systems, a seminal media technology company that pioneered consumer-generated media creation. During his tenure at Pinnacle, the company grew from start-up stage to a global $350M public company, won several Emmy awards and completed more than a dozen M&A transactions before being acquired by Avid Technology. Previously, Ajay was with Mindset Corporation, a computer graphics start-up. Before Mindset, he held various technical and management positions at Atari Corporation, a video games company, and Unisys Corporation, an IT services company.
He is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs, an active group providing support for entrepreneurs and is on the Board of Trustees of the Harker School in San Jose.
Jim joined Prism in 2000 and runs the firm's software & services practice. His focus areas are software as a service and MSP's, online exchanges, technology-enabled services and technology-enabled vertical plays. Jim is a director for Astoria Software, Chosen Security, White Sky, The New Orleans Exchange, Mota and RatePoint. He was formerly on the boards of Softricity, acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), GeoTrust, acquired by Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), and Silverback Technologies, acquired by Dell (NASDAQ: DELL).
Possessing a unique mix of legal, operational and technical knowledge, Jim complements and extends Prism's entrepreneurial and financial expertise. Jim joined Prism from EPiCON, Inc., where he served as Legal Counsel and Director of Business Operations. A Prism investment, EPiCON was sold to Nortel Networks in September 2000.
He has held positions in Corporate Legal Counsel and Business Operations for Sapient Corporation. He also served as Legal Counsel for the Outsourcing Division of Bell Atlantic Network Integration, which during his tenure, grew into a $300 million business in four years.
A member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, Jim holds a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a J.D. cum laude from Suffolk University Law School.
Michael Stanfield is the Chairman and CEO of Intersections. He co-founded CreditComm, the predecessor to Intersections Inc., in May 1996. Mr. Stanfield joined Loeb Partners Corporation, an affiliate of Loeb Holding Corporation, in November 1993 and served as a Managing Director at the time of his resignation in August 1999. He has been involved in management information services and direct marketing through investments and management since 1982, and has served as a director of CCC Information Services Inc. and BWIA West Indies Airways.
Prior to beginning his operational career, Mr. Stanfield was an investment banker with Loeb, Rhoades & Co. and Wertheim & Co. He holds a B.B.A. in Business Administration from Emory University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
"; var cont5 = "1825 S. Grant St., Suite 250
San Mateo, CA 94402
Phone: 650-286-9440
Fax: 650-286-9273
Contact us today to learn why ID Vault is the safest way to protect against identity theft.
For sales questions about ID Vault, click here to email White Sky, Inc.
For questions about your order, please click here.
Click here for ID Vault Customer Support.
"; var cont6 = "We’ve compiled this glossary to define common terms concerning identity theft and online crimes.
Identity fraud occurs when one of more pieces of an individual’s personal information are used as a basis to create a profile for a nonexistent person.
Identity theft occurs when somebody steals your name and other personal information, such as a social security number, driver's license number, and/or usernames and passwords, for fraudulent purposes, assuming your identity.
Pharming is a scheme whereby criminal hackers redirect Internet traffic from one website to a different, identical-looking site in order to trick you into entering your username and password into the database on their fake site. Unbeknownst to you, these hackers have hijacked your computer into going to the fake site or hijacked the DNS server on your intended site.
Phishing is the latest technique in identity theft. Scam artists send emails that contain links to malicious websites to obtain personal information. The computer user follows the link, which directs them to a website that is designed to capture your personal information. According to the FBI, phishing has become the leading type of Internet-based fraud with financial institutions accounting for approximately 90% of all phishing attacks.
Malware, short for malicious software, is an umbrella term for any software harmful to a computer user. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and also spyware, programming that gathers information about a computer user without permission.
Keystroke logging (also known as keylogging) is a diagnostic tool used in software development that captures the user's keystrokes. Keylogging can be useful. For instance, it is sometimes used to measure employee productivity on certain clerical tasks or for law enforcement. However keylogging is also used by individuals to spy on computers by providing a means to obtain passwords or encryption keys. Unfortunately, keyloggers are widely available on the Internet.
Single-factor authentication describes username and password sign in systems and relies on something you know. If someone types in the correct username and password, access is granted to the account. Financial institutions have long known that single-factor authentication is difficult to keep 100% secure.
Spyware is an umbrella term for any technology that gathers information about a person or organization without their knowledge. Advertisers or other interested parties often use spyware programming to gather and relay information.
Trojan horses are programs that, unlike a virus, contain or install a malicious program sometimes called the payload or \"trojan.\" Trojan horses can run autonomously, masquerading as a useful program, or hack into the code of an existing program and execute itself while that program runs.
Two-factor authentication requires information you know and something that you have or own, to access an account. ATM cards, for instance, require something you know (one factor: your personal identification number) and something you have or own (second factor: your ATM card). Security experts recommend two-factor authentication over single-factor authentication.
Viruses are programs with the ability to replicate and install themselves, or infect, a computer without the computer user's knowledge or authorization.
Worms are computer viruses which can self-replicate by resending themselves via email or a network message.
"; var cont7 = "Creating a “good” password is one of the key ways you can protect yourself against identity theft. A good password will be easy to remember but difficult to guess. Unfortunately, people with malicious intent are constantly trying to break passwords to gain access to sensitive accounts. Don’t make it easy for them, but do make it easy for yourself.
While longer passwords can help protect yourself against identity theft by making it harder for criminals to find your password, sometimes this is not possible or feasible. When creating a new password, most security experts suggest avoiding the use of:
Some security experts go as far as to suggest avoiding using any word in the dictionary, including foreign dictionaries, as well as the use of passwords with double letters or numbers.
When setting up your account, never leave the password field blank.
As a child, did you create secret codes with friends or siblings? One way to make your password more difficult to crack is by substituting letters with characters and numbers. Using numbers and characters that resemble the letters they are replacing sometimes makes it easier to remember.
Another technique some use is to take the first letters of the words in a favorite line of poetry or a verse of song. \"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both\" becomes \"2RDiaYW,aS1cnTB.\"
The best passwords are at least eight characters in length, and contain a combination of numbers, keyboard characters and both upper- and lower-case letters.
To help remember your new password, use it immediately by logging in and out several times. Another way to recall the password is to write it down on a piece of paper. The act of writing it down sometimes etches it better in your mind. Just remember to shred that piece of paper.
ID Vault remembers all of your usernames and passwords, so you don’t have to.
While we’ve outlined a few techniques to create your own unique passwords, here are a few of the commonly used \"bad\" passwords. Don’t use these!
Finally, when setting up your account, never leave the password field blank.
Your employer may force you to change your password several times a year or more. Experts vary in their recommendations, but changing your password every 30 to 90 days helps prevent identity theft.
With your personal accounts, like your email and banking accounts and shopping sites, resist the urge to use the same password for all your sites and please, do change your password.
While we can point out ways to create and remember your passwords in order to help stop ID theft, it’s wise to use ID Vault to store your passwords safely. Never share your password information with anyone. You may also wish to consider storing your most valuable account information in a safe deposit box as a back up, along with other important items.
"; var cont8 = "If you believe you have been victimized by identity theft or fraud, taking action immediately will help protect your assets, accounts and credit rating. According to The Identity Theft Resource Center, it takes an average of 600 hours to rectify the effects of identity theft and reclaim your good name and credit rating.
Contact each of the three principal credit reporting companies. Even if you merely suspect credit fraud but have no proof, you can put a credit freeze on your account, depending on what state you live in.
Equifax: To report fraud, call (800) 525-6285 or write to P.O. Box 740250, Atlanta, GA 30374-0250. For a copy of your credit report, ($8 in most states), write to P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241, or call (800) 685-1111.
Experian (formerly TRW): To report fraud, call (888) EXPERIAN or (888) 397-3742, fax to (800) 301-7196, or write to P.O. Box 1017, Allen, TX 75013. For a copy of your credit report ($8 in most states): P.O. Box 2104, Allen TX 75013, or call (888) EXPERIAN.
Trans Union: To report fraud, call (800) 680-7289 or write to P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92634. For a copy of your credit report ($8 in most states), write to P.O. Box 390, Springfield, PA 19064 or call: (800) 888-4213.
To help stop identity theft as soon as possible, immediately contact creditors or financial institutions where you have accounts that an identity thief may have accessed without your knowledge. Identity thieves may have opened fraudulent accounts using your personal information.
If an identity thief has learned of your financial accounts, you may wish to cancel those accounts, place stop-payment orders on any outstanding checks, and request new ATM cards, accounts, and Personal Identification Numbers (PIN).
Postal Fraud
If you suspect that someone has redirected your mail, or has used mail to commit fraud using your personal information, contact your local office of the Postal Inspection Office.
Social Security Fraud
If you suspect that your Social Security number has been fraudulently used, call the Social Security Administration at 800-269-0271 to report the fraud.
Tax Fraud
If you suspect that your personal information has been used in connection with violations of the tax code, call the Internal Revenue Service at 1-800-829-0433.