http://affiniongroupmedia.com/index.php/affinion/c_pcs/C11/ en jonathan.carpenter@dvl.com Copyright 2008 2008-11-14T18:46:00-06:00 http://affiniongroupmedia.com/index.php/affinion/display_blog/affinion_group_cardcops_launch_id_theft_prevention_technology/ http://affiniongroupmedia.com/index.php/affinion/display_blog/affinion_group_cardcops_launch_id_theft_prevention_technology/#When:21:54:00Z Norwalk, Conn. and Bethlehem, Pa. - April 18, 2006 - Affinion Group, a leading global affinity marketer, and Edentify, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: EDFY), a leading provider of identity management and fraud detection solutions, announced today that they have entered into an exclusive marketing agreement that will allow Affinion to incorporate Edentify's IDBenchmark™ solution into its product offerings. Now, by including this patented identity fraud assessment, detection, and prevention technology solution from Edentify in its services, Affinion will provide consumers an unprecedented way to proactively manage their identity information and avert potential instances of identity theft and fraud. Edentify's IDBenchmark™ uses a proprietary process to assess and score the risk of fraud associated with specific manipulated identities, and will allow Affinion to analyze the identity data of its own members and determine the level of risk linked to possible incidences of identity manipulation and theft. Users of Affinion's ID theft prevention services, including PrivacyGuard, PC Safety Plus, HotLine and others, will be empowered with Edentify's identity risk score, allowing them to proactively monitor the level of risk associated with their identities relative to how it is used across many different industries and public databases and potentially stop their identities from being used as part of a crime. This new technology will also be used by Affinion Group in developing new ID theft products. "Our service, coupled with Edentify's revolutionary technology, keeps consumers one step ahead of would-be ID thieves, and is perhaps their best chance of avoiding identity-related criminal abuse," says Frank Abagnale, an Affinion Group spokesperson, former master forger, and leading fraud prevention expert, whose life story inspired Steven Spielberg's movie, Catch Me if You Can. "Punishment for fraud and recovery of stolen funds are so rare that prevention is the only viable course of action. This new offering provides unsurpassed opportunities to deter this spiraling crime." Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America, hitting 27.3 million victims in the past five years, and costing them over $56 billion in damages, according to a study from Javelin Strategy & Research. In fact, it has become so prevalent that an identity thief strikes on average every 3.5 seconds. "Taking a proactive approach to securing identity information is the most effective way to prevent identity fraud," said Terrence DeFranco, Chief Executive Officer of Edentify, Inc. "By interfacing our ID Benchmark™ technology with Affinion's ID theft prevention services, consumers can see exactly how risky their online buying behavior, for example, might be, and make the necessary adjustments in their behavior to secure their identity information." The first product to use this new technology will be IdentitySweep, the first real-time identity management service for consumers. Created by Affinion Group and MyPublicInfo, Inc., a leader in consumer identity protection, IdentitySweep will make this new technology available to customers in the near future. Affinion Group was the first to develop a membership credit monitoring product in 1992, and remains the largest with some 4 million members in the U.S. "As the leader in credit monitoring and identity theft protection, we are excited to incorporate Edentify's advanced technologies into our suite of solutions that includes PrivacyGuard, PC Safety Plus and HotLine," said Tom Rusin, Chief Revenue Officer and General Manager of Affinion. "Our new protection services are ushering in a new era of identity fraud protection that will benefit Affinion’s more than 4,500 marketing partners and their customers across multiple industries." About Affinion Group Affinion Group is a leading affinity direct marketer of value-added membership, insurance and package enhancement programs and services to consumers. With more than 30 years of experience, Affinion Group currently offers its programs and services worldwide through more than 4,500 affinity partners. Its diversified base of affinity partners includes leading companies in a wide variety of industries, including financial services, retail, travel, telecommunications, utilities and Internet. Affinion Group also has a growing loyalty solutions operation that administers points-based loyalty programs. Based in Norwalk, Conn., Affinion Group has approximately 3,600 employees throughout the United States and in 13 countries across Europe. Affinion Group has established itself as a premiere security, credit monitoring and identity theft protection innovator. It launched HotLine, a leading ID theft, credit card, fraud protection and security service in 1969. PrivacyGuard, a comprehensive membership credit monitoring product which was created in 1992, remains the largest in the U.S. with 4 million members. Other ID theft protection services in Affinion's thriving security business include PC SafetyPlus, an identity theft software service that protects members with a personal firewall to thwart hackers and other online ID threats. PC SafetyPlus software features automatic updates and service upgrades for protection against prevailing computer viruses and worms. About Edentify Inc. Edentify, Inc. ("Edentify" ), headquartered in Bethlehem, Pa., was formed in August 2004 with the objective of becoming the leading organization in the field of developing and deploying data analysis technology solutions for preventing identity theft and fraud. It is currently a later development-stage company and expects shortly to begin a period of increased growth. Edentify will seek to fulfill its goals by analyzing the means by which identity crimes are perpetrated and through the development of new technologies and procedures to assist corporations, the government and consumers in the fight against identity fraud and related crime. Edentify owns the intellectual property rights to two strategic approaches towards the detection and prevention of identity fraud. One is a patented information-based approach that analyzes identity data information for individuals in large databases and is capable of detecting and scoring incidences of identity manipulation and potential theft (Identity Quotient Index(TM)). The forerunner of this technology is currently used in screening identities used for new checking account applications at nearly every major bank in the U.S. Edentify will continue to market this technology to other areas of the financial services industry, as well as to large healthcare organizations and local, state and federal governments. The second approach is a biometric technology that will be marketed through and is named after our wholly-owned subsidiary, InMotion Biometrics, Inc. ("IMB" ). This novel set of algorithms combines face and voice recognition techniques for authenticating the identity of an individual. The IMB technology is licensed from face2face, Inc., a leading character animation company that was spun off from Lucent Technologies, Inc. in 2000. The core capability of this technology is its facial analysis system that contains highly evolved algorithms for obtaining the inner lip contour, which can accurately measure for optimal visual speech recognition performance. Additionally, the system is designed as a multi-modal platform capable of combining the reading of two or more biometric technologies simultaneously. For more information, please see our website: http://www.edentify.us. NOTE TO PRESS: Comprehensive resources are available for this story, including people and/or product photographs, company and/or product logos, executive interviews, industry sources, analyst contacts, answers to frequently asked questions, industry research and data, white papers, corporate and product briefs, and more. Please contact Todd Smith at Affinion Group, 615.764.2598, todd.smith@affiniongroup.com, or Mike Lizun at Gregory FCA, at 610-642-8253,Mike@GregoryFCA.com. Forward-Looking Statement Disclaimer This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements of future goals and similar statements reflecting other than historical facts constitute forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which are described in Edentify's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties. Edentify undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release. Affinion, Hot-Line Credit Card Buerau Of America, ID Secure, PC Safety Plus, Privacy Guard 2006-04-20T21:54:00-06:00 http://affiniongroupmedia.com/index.php/affinion/display_blog/affinion_and_edentify_join_forces_to_advance_fraud_detection_services/ http://affiniongroupmedia.com/index.php/affinion/display_blog/affinion_and_edentify_join_forces_to_advance_fraud_detection_services/#When:22:01:00Z Affinion Group, a leading global affinity marketer, and Edentify, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: EDFY), a leading provider of identity management and fraud detection solutions, announced today that they have entered into an exclusive marketing agreement that will allow Affinion to incorporate Edentify's IDBenchmark™ solution into its product offerings. Now, by including this patented identity fraud assessment, detection, and prevention technology solution from Edentify in its services, Affinion will provide consumers an unprecedented way to proactively manage their identity information and avert potential instances of identity theft and fraud. Norwalk, Conn. and Bethlehem, Pa. - April 18, 2006 - Affinion Group, a leading global affinity marketer, and Edentify, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: EDFY), a leading provider of identity management and fraud detection solutions, announced today that they have entered into an exclusive marketing agreement that will allow Affinion to incorporate Edentify's IDBenchmark™ solution into its product offerings. Now, by including this patented identity fraud assessment, detection, and prevention technology solution from Edentify in its services, Affinion will provide consumers an unprecedented way to proactively manage their identity information and avert potential instances of identity theft and fraud. Edentify's IDBenchmark™ uses a proprietary process to assess and score the risk of fraud associated with specific manipulated identities, and will allow Affinion to analyze the identity data of its own members and determine the level of risk linked to possible incidences of identity manipulation and theft. Users of Affinion's ID theft prevention services, including PrivacyGuard, PC Safety Plus, HotLine and others, will be empowered with Edentify's identity risk score, allowing them to proactively monitor the level of risk associated with their identities relative to how it is used across many different industries and public databases and potentially stop their identities from being used as part of a crime. This new technology will also be used by Affinion Group in developing new ID theft products. "Our service, coupled with Edentify's revolutionary technology, keeps consumers one step ahead of would-be ID thieves, and is perhaps their best chance of avoiding identity-related criminal abuse," says Frank Abagnale, an Affinion Group spokesperson, former master forger, and leading fraud prevention expert, whose life story inspired Steven Spielberg's movie, Catch Me if You Can. "Punishment for fraud and recovery of stolen funds are so rare that prevention is the only viable course of action. This new offering provides unsurpassed opportunities to deter this spiraling crime." Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America, hitting 27.3 million victims in the past five years, and costing them over $56 billion in damages, according to a study from Javelin Strategy & Research. In fact, it has become so prevalent that an identity thief strikes on average every 3.5 seconds. "Taking a proactive approach to securing identity information is the most effective way to prevent identity fraud," said Terrence DeFranco, Chief Executive Officer of Edentify, Inc. "By interfacing our ID Benchmark™ technology with Affinion's ID theft prevention services, consumers can see exactly how risky their online buying behavior, for example, might be, and make the necessary adjustments in their behavior to secure their identity information." The first product to use this new technology will be IdentitySweep, the first real-time identity management service for consumers. Created by Affinion Group and MyPublicInfo, Inc., a leader in consumer identity protection, IdentitySweep will make this new technology available to customers in the near future. Affinion Group was the first to develop a membership credit monitoring product in 1992, and remains the largest with some 4 million members in the U.S. "As the leader in credit monitoring and identity theft protection, we are excited to incorporate Edentify's advanced technologies into our suite of solutions that includes PrivacyGuard, PC Safety Plus and HotLine," said Tom Rusin, Chief Revenue Officer and General Manager of Affinion. "Our new protection services are ushering in a new era of identity fraud protection that will benefit Affinion’s more than 4,500 marketing partners and their customers across multiple industries." About Affinion Group Affinion Group is a leading affinity direct marketer of value-added membership, insurance and package enhancement programs and services to consumers. With more than 30 years of experience, Affinion Group currently offers its programs and services worldwide through more than 4,500 affinity partners. Its diversified base of affinity partners includes leading companies in a wide variety of industries, including financial services, retail, travel, telecommunications, utilities and Internet. Affinion Group also has a growing loyalty solutions operation that administers points-based loyalty programs. Based in Norwalk, Conn., Affinion Group has approximately 3,600 employees throughout the United States and in 13 countries across Europe. Affinion Group has established itself as a premiere security, credit monitoring and identity theft protection innovator. It launched HotLine, a leading ID theft, credit card, fraud protection and security service in 1969. PrivacyGuard, a comprehensive membership credit monitoring product which was created in 1992, remains the largest in the U.S. with 4 million members. Other ID theft protection services in Affinion's thriving security business include PC SafetyPlus, an identity theft software service that protects members with a personal firewall to thwart hackers and other online ID threats. PC SafetyPlus software features automatic updates and service upgrades for protection against prevailing computer viruses and worms. About Edentify Inc. Edentify, Inc. ("Edentify" ), headquartered in Bethlehem, Pa., was formed in August 2004 with the objective of becoming the leading organization in the field of developing and deploying data analysis technology solutions for preventing identity theft and fraud. It is currently a later development-stage company and expects shortly to begin a period of increased growth. Edentify will seek to fulfill its goals by analyzing the means by which identity crimes are perpetrated and through the development of new technologies and procedures to assist corporations, the government and consumers in the fight against identity fraud and related crime. Edentify owns the intellectual property rights to two strategic approaches towards the detection and prevention of identity fraud. One is a patented information-based approach that analyzes identity data information for individuals in large databases and is capable of detecting and scoring incidences of identity manipulation and potential theft (Identity Quotient Index(TM)). The forerunner of this technology is currently used in screening identities used for new checking account applications at nearly every major bank in the U.S. Edentify will continue to market this technology to other areas of the financial services industry, as well as to large healthcare organizations and local, state and federal governments. The second approach is a biometric technology that will be marketed through and is named after our wholly-owned subsidiary, InMotion Biometrics, Inc. ("IMB" ). This novel set of algorithms combines face and voice recognition techniques for authenticating the identity of an individual. The IMB technology is licensed from face2face, Inc., a leading character animation company that was spun off from Lucent Technologies, Inc. in 2000. The core capability of this technology is its facial analysis system that contains highly evolved algorithms for obtaining the inner lip contour, which can accurately measure for optimal visual speech recognition performance. Additionally, the system is designed as a multi-modal platform capable of combining the reading of two or more biometric technologies simultaneously. For more information, please see our website: http://www.edentify.us. NOTE TO PRESS: Comprehensive resources are available for this story, including people and/or product photographs, company and/or product logos, executive interviews, industry sources, analyst contacts, answers to frequently asked questions, industry research and data, white papers, corporate and product briefs, and more. Please contact Todd Smith at Affinion Group, 615.764.2598, todd.smith@affiniongroup.com, or Mike Lizun at Gregory FCA, at 610-642-8253,Mike@GregoryFCA.com. Forward-Looking Statement Disclaimer This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements of future goals and similar statements reflecting other than historical facts constitute forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which are described in Edentify's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties. Edentify undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release. Affinion, Hot-Line Credit Card Buerau Of America, ID Secure, PC Safety Plus, Privacy Guard 2006-04-18T22:01:00-06:00 http://affiniongroupmedia.com/index.php/affinion/display_blog/new_worm_attack_underscores_importance_of_updating_security_software1/ http://affiniongroupmedia.com/index.php/affinion/display_blog/new_worm_attack_underscores_importance_of_updating_security_software1/#When:21:54:00Z NORWALK, Conn. - Feb. 2, 2006 - A new family of computer worms that attacks the Windows operating system is set to attack millions of computer users across the Internet tomorrow, a former master forger and leading fraud prevention expert warns. Worm and virus attacks prey on consumers - and those who have not purchased or recently updated their Internet security software are more vulnerable. These attacks can also allow a criminal to obtain personal information that could be used to steal individual identities. Once activated, these worms - which will attack computers under the names Nyxem.E, CME-24, BlackWorm, Mywife.E, KamaSutra and VB.bi. - will corrupt all documents on an infected machine with the following file extensions: .dmp, .doc, .mdb, .mde, .pdf, .psd, .ppt, .pps, .rar, .xls and .zip. "That means almost all files created using Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft PowerPoint could be lost forever, as well as certain Adobe Photoshop files, PDF files used by Adobe Acrobat and competing PDF readers, and several kinds of database and compression files," Frank W. Abagnale said. "These worms are generally meant to help spammers and hackers carry out attacks, so the impact this time may be more severe than recent outbreaks." Hundreds of thousands of Windows machines are believed to have already been infected, mostly in India, Peru, Turkey and Italy, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for anti-virus and security company F-Secure Corp. Microsoft Corp. issued an advisory Tuesday warning customers about the worm, which affects most versions of Windows. The worm also tries to disable anti-virus software that is out of date, Hypponen said. Thus, users should make sure their software is turned on and has the latest definitions. Users should be safe if they have the latest anti-virus software or if their computers are set with limited privileges, a common setting in larger organizations and companies. They are vulnerable if they, like many small business and home users, leave their computers set with full administrative rights. Users should also check the date on the computer. The worm hits the third of every month, so if the computer’s local calendar settings are off, Hypponen said, files may be destroyed sooner or later, even if the computer is never turned on Friday. "The installation of a firewall that prevents unauthorized access to your computer is especially important if you leave your computer connected to the Web though a DSL or cable modem," Abagnale said. If you find it difficult to keep your PC software up-to-date, Abagnale suggests joining a service such as PC SafetyPlus (http://www.pcsafetyplus.com), which provides F-Secure virus protection and a personal firewall to thwart hackers and other online threats. PC SafetyPlus software features automatic updates and service upgrades for protection against prevailing computer viruses and worms. PC users should also update their Microsoft operating system regularly. About Frank Abagnale A master forger who once cashed $2.5 million in bad checks, Abagnale detailed his crimes in the 1980 autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, which became a blockbuster movie. Abagnale has spent the past 30 years helping the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to prevent fraud and respond to changing trends in criminal activity. About PC SafetyPlus Members of the PC SafetyPlus service (http://www.pcsafetyplus.com or 1-877-630-1183) enjoy leading-edge Internet security tools and ID theft protection, including virus and worm protection, firewall protection, spyware protection, spam blocker, parental control, ID theft support service and ID theft insurance. A trial membership of the Internet security service is available, with the first month costing only $1. This membership can be cancelled at any time during the one-month trial period by calling toll free and owing nothing further. Unless the member calls to cancel during the trial, the membership will be extended automatically for an entire year at the $99.99 annual fee and automatically renewed annually upon expiration at the then-current annual fee, billed to a credit card account, without the member having to do anything further. Additionally, members may call toll free to cancel at any time and receive a pro-rata refund of their then current membership fee. The PC SafetyPlus service is offered by Affinion Group, a leader in the membership, insurance and loyalty marketing businesses, providing products and services that touch the lives of millions of Americans. About Affinion Group Affinion Group is a leading affinity direct marketer of value-added membership, insurance and package enhancement programs and services to consumers. With more than 30 years of experience, Affinion Group currently offers its programs and services worldwide through more than 4,500 affinity partners. Its diversified base of affinity partners includes leading companies in a wide variety of industries, including financial services, retail, travel, telecommunications, utilities and Internet. Affinion Group also has a growing loyalty solutions operation which administers points-based loyalty programs. Based in Norwalk, Conn., Affinion Group has approximately 3,600 employees throughout the United States and in 13 countries across Europe. PC Safety Plus 2006-02-02T21:54:00-06:00