FREE Copy of ID Theft Book for FCPS Data Breach Victims (and Everyone Else)

By now many have heard about the Frederick County Public Schools data breach in Maryland.

In case you haven't, a list of 20.000 identities, most likely former FCPS students, has been made available for sale on the internet, with a 1,000 identity list available for free as a sample. Unfortunately, as of the time of this article, only the 1,000 former students whose information was released publicly will receive free identity theft monitoring from FCPS. Additionally, this monitoring will only last for one year.

As a cyber security professional, I am very concerned about FCPS only offering protection to students whose identities were offered for free as samples. The 20,000 identity list is being offered for sale for less than a dollar per identity, and as any cyber security professional can tell you, it is safe to assume that any students who were contained in the same database as the 1,000 student sample list, have most likely been victims of the breach as well.

Unfortunately, instead of continuing to work together to identify if additional students were affected by the breach, FCPS and the Maryland State Department of Education are now pointing fingers at each other.

While I cannot fix this issue, or force FCPS and MSDE to cooperate, what I can do is give away free early-access copies of my book, Death by Identity Theft.

If you use the coupon code below "FCPSDataBreach", you will be able to obtain an electronic copy of the book as it is written now, for free. And best of all, once the book is completed, you will receive an electronic copy of the entire book at no additional charge. Right now the book is 80% completed, and I expect to finish the book within a month.

I could try and personally verify if you're a former Frederick County student, but I'd rather not try to personally verify 20,000 people, so click the link below to claim your free copy, even if you aren't a victim of the breach, and you can claim your free copy between now and May 1, 2017.

http://leanpub.com/deathbyidentitytheft/c/FCPSDataBreach

While you're at it, please sign the petition requesting FCPS provide seven years of identity theft monitoring for data breach victims.

It is my hope that this little bit of holiday good-will will help those affected by the breach, as well as help spread awareness of just how serious identity theft truly is.

-Ken