Byron V. Acohido's Biography

I'm Byron Acohido. I’ve been a newspaper reporter for 31 years. My current gig: covering Microsoft and Internet security for USA Today. I am also the co-author of Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity, a book I hope emerges as the Silent Spring for our digital age. While at the Seattle Times earlier in my career, I won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting, and 11 other major awards for stories linking a dangerous defect in the rudder controls of Boeing 737 jetliners to a string of crashes that killed hundreds of people. Since joining USA Today in December 2000, I've led the paper’s cutting-edge coverage of Internet security and cyber crime. The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants recently awarded myself and my colleague, Jon Swartz, the 2008 Excellence in Financial Journalism Awards for our newspaper stories about data theft and identity fraud. In 2005, we won the Society of American Business Editors and Writers’ Best in Business Award for Projects by large newspapers. In 2005 and 2006, we were named finalists for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. I’ve conducted numerous workshops on aviation safety, investigative journalism and technology topics. You can hear me interviewed for print, radio, TV and blogs--discussing the public's rising exposure to data theft and identity fraud--by clicking here.