If you have a MySpace account, or even worse, have a child who uses MySpace, then I suggest you go immediately to your site and remove any photos, comments, or any other information you wouldn’t want leaking into the public domain.

Of course you might be a little late. Apparently a hacker used a security weakness to break into MySpace servers and steal more than half a million images uploaded by members. And now the photos are being posted free of charge on sites around the web where thousands of surfers have already downloaded them.

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If you receive an electronic card or e-card in the next few weeks that looks anything like a St. Valentine's Day card, be very careful about opening it.

Impatient hackers have begun their romancing season early this year and are sending out millions of spam emails and e-cards that link to infected web sites.

The infection waiting for your embrace is the Storm Trojan, one of the biggest security threats of last year. If you click on the card, expect to have your computer hijacked, data pilfered, and heart broken. Love really can hurt!

2007 has earned the title as the worst year on record for data breaches. And while records have only been kept for a few years, it’s a reminder that now’s not the time to drop your guard.

There were an estimated 443 reported data breaches in 2007, a jump of 40% on the previous year. And that number does not include data breaches that were not reported, or worse, not detected.

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In a complete and unavoidable about turn, the three main credit bureaus are now championing the value of consumers using a credit freeze to protect against identity theft. A credit freeze prevents new credit being opened without the permission of the consumer and more than 40 states have introduced credit freeze laws in the last few years.

When you set up a credit freeze you'll usually be given a security PIN, and every time there's a credit inquiry to any of the credit bureaus or someone tries to obtain new credit in your name, you can use the pin to allow or reject the credit request.

But if the credit bureaus had their way there would be no such thing as a credit freeze. According to a recent article in USA Today the three credit bureaus spent $1.4 million last year touring every state in the nation to try to persuade lawmakers that credit freeze laws were a bad idea.

Thankfully our lawmakers didn’t buy their hollow arguments, so in an effort to save some face each of the three bureaus recently announced their plan to finally offer credit freezes to consumers, but for a price ($10 per freeze, free if you can prove that you’re a victim of identity theft). A Transunion spokesperson even described the progress as “groundbreaking” although she might have been referring to their inevitable cave in.

A few days ago I mentioned efforts by TJ Maxx to settle the first class action lawsuits stemming from its massive data breach earlier this year.

One of the many questionable components of the settlement was TJ Maxx' offer of a $30 voucher for affected customers. But at the same time as TJ Maxx was admitting that it wasn't in a position to even let all affected customers know about the offer, a judge set to hear the lawsuit questioned the validity of a voucher that would only be valid at a TJ maxx or related store.

Instead he suggested a simple cash payment, something that could cost TJ Maxx a lot more.

Good on ya, Judge. Time for TJ Maxx to take its punishinment and pay up.