According to CNET, social networking site Facebook has changed a permissions dialog box users see when downloading third-party Facebook apps. This change potentially makes users’ addresses and phone numbers.

When a user downloads a third-party Facebook app, a Request for Permission dialog box appears, asking for access to basic information, including the downloader’s name, profile picture, gender, user ID, list of friends, and more. Facebook has now added an additional section that asks for access to the user’s current address and mobile phone number.

Privacy advocates are concerned that people won’t notice the change and will click the dialog box’s Allow button unthinkingly. This creates opportunities for unscrupulous developers to create bogus apps designed to capture private information. Aside from the potential for outright hacking and identity theft, developers could also sell information on Facebook users to data brokers.

Users of third-party Facebook apps can simply click the Don’t Allow button–which reportedly won’t interfere with a successful download–or they can remove their address and phone number from their Facebook profile.

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According to ConsumerAffairs.com, identity thieves hit hardest during the month of January. Why? For starters, employers, banks and credit card companies mail out all of their year-end documents, including W-2s, 1099 forms, credit card summaries, and brokerage statements, in January. In addition, credit card companies recruit aggressively early in the year, which means there are more than one million credit cards in the mail stream on any given day.

Some identity thieves follow mail carriers and look through your mail for any identity details they can use to carry out identity theft. To avoid identity theft this month, be prompt in collecting your mail, rather than letting it sit for days. Also, keep track of when items arrive and if they seem delayed, call the sender to find out why. If you suspect mail theft, call the Postal Inspector’s Office immediately. Finally, consider installing a strong locked mailbox.

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According to Infosecurity.com, the Identity Theft Resource Center recorded 662 data breaches in the United States in 2010, a nearly 33 percent increase from 2009. This shows that organizations that handle and store sensitive digital data have much room for improvement.

Paper breaches accounted for nearly 20 percent of all reported security breaches, according to the ITRC’s annual Breach List. Malware attacks that siphoned data from computers accounted for 17.1 percent of stolen data.

In all, the 662 data breaches exposed a total of 16,167,542 records. The Los Angeles Firemen’s Credit Union, for example, exposed 28,000 records on May 5, 2010, and Education Credit Management Corp. exposed 3,300,000 records in a March 2010 incident.

“Other than breaches reported by the media and a few progressive state websites, there is little or no information available on many data breach events,” stated the ITRC. “It is clear that without a mandatory national reporting requirement, that many data breaches will continue to be unreported, or under-reported.”

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