IDENTITY THEFT
Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person’s personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes.
Identity theft deliberately uses someone else’s identity as a method to gain financial advantages or obtain credit and other benefits, and perhaps to cause other person’s disadvantages or loss. The person whose identity has been stolen may suffer adverse consequences, especially if they are falsely held responsible for the perpetrator’s crimes or actions. Personally identifiable information generally includes a person’s name, date of birth, social security number, driver’s license number, bank account or credit card numbers, PINs, electronic signatures, fingerprints, passwords, or any other information that can be used to access a person’s financial resources.
Identity theft can often occur and be happening for a long time, without an individual’s knowledge. Particularly, when it has occurred through a data breach. The US government determined that, “most breaches have not resulted in detected incidents of identity theft”. A study by Carnegie Mellon University noted that “Most often, the causes of identity theft are not known”.
Many hackers are using malicious software like Zeus and other hacker-friendly software to steal credit card information, important documents, and even documents necessary for homeland security in the U.S. As Gunter Ollmann, Chief Technology Officer of security at Microsoft, said, “Interested in credit card theft? There’s an app for that.”
Criminal identity theft
(posing as another person when apprehended for a crime)
Financial identity theft
(using another identity to obtain credit, goods, and services)
Identity cloning
(using another’s information to assume his or her identity in daily life) Learn about Identity cloning
Child identity theft
Criminal Identity Theft
When a criminal fraudulently identifies themselves to police as another individual at the point of arrest, it is sometimes referred to as “Criminal Identity Theft.” In some cases, criminals have previously obtained state-issued identity documents using credentials stolen from others, or have simply presented a fake ID. Provided the deception works, charges may be placed under the victim’s name, letting the criminal off the hook.
Victims might only learn of such incidents by chance, for example by receiving a court summons, discovering their driver’s licenses are suspended when stopped for minor traffic violations, or through background checks performed for employment purposes.
It can be difficult for the victim of criminal identity theft to clear their record. The steps required to clear the victim’s incorrect criminal record depend on which jurisdiction the crime occurred and whether the true identity of the criminal can be determined. The victim might need to locate the original arresting officers and prove their own identity by some reliable means such as fingerprinting or DNA testing and may need to go to a court hearing to be cleared of the charges.
Obtaining an expungement of court records may also be required. Authorities might permanently maintain the victim’s name as an alias for the criminal’s true identity in their criminal records databases. One problem that victims of criminal identity theft may encounter is that various data aggregators might still have incorrect criminal records in their databases even after court and police records are corrected. Thus a future background check may return the incorrect criminal records. This is just one example of the kinds of impact that may continue to affect the victims of identity theft for some months or even years after the crime, aside from the psychological trauma that being ‘cloned’ typically engenders.
Financial Identity Theft
The most common type of identity thefts are related to finance. Financial identity theft includes obtaining credit, loans, goods, and services while claiming to be someone else. Most often this takes the form of the victim discovering charges that have been made on their credit cards or accounts, by thieves that have stolen their identity. But it can even take the form of tax returns being filed for a person whose identity has been stolen, and the criminal collecting the return.
Identity Cloning
In this situation, the identity thief impersonates someone else to conceal their own true identity. Examples are illegal immigrants hiding their illegal status, people hiding from creditors or other individuals and those who simply want to become “Anonymous”for personal reasons.
Another example is posers, a label given to people who use someone else’s photos and information on social networking sites. Posers mostly create believable stories involving friends of the real person they are imitating. Unlike identity theft used to obtain credit which usually comes to light when the debts mount, concealment may continue indefinitely without being detected, particularly if the identity thief can obtain false credentials to pass various authentication tests in everyday life.
Child Identity Theft
Child identity theft occurs when a minor’s identity is exploited by another person for the impostor’s personal gain. The impostor can be a family member, a friend, or even a stranger who targets children.
The Social Security numbers of children are valued because they don’t have any information associated with them. Thieves can establish lines of credit, obtain driver’s licenses, or even buy a house using a child’s identity. This fraud can go undetected for years, as most children do not discover the problem until years later.
Child identity theft is fairly common, and studies have shown that the problem is growing. A recent study on child identity theft found that of 40,000 children, 10.2% were victims of identity theft.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that about nine million people will be victims of identity theft in the United States per year. Not only are children big targets of identity theft but children who are in foster care are even bigger targets. This is because they are most likely moved around quite frequently and their SSN is being shared with multiple people and agencies. Foster children are even more victims of identity theft within their own families and other relatives.
How can Thieves steal my Identity?
There are many ways that thieves can obtain and exploit your Identity. So to protect yourself, its important to be aware of the various techniques being used, such as:
Dumpster Diving: Rummaging through rubbish for personal information
Old Hard Drives: Retrieving personal data from redundant IT equipment and storage media including PCs, servers, PDAs, mobile phones, USB memory sticks, and hard drives that have been disposed of carelessly at public dump sites, given away, or sold on without having been properly sanitized
Public Records: Using public records, published in official registers such as electoral rolls.
Stolen cards: Stealing bank or credit cards, identification cards, passports, authentication tokens… typically by pickpocketing, housebreaking, or mail theft.
Account Verification Scams: Beware common-knowledge questioning schemes that ask for account verification, such as “What’s your mother’s maiden name?”, “what was your first car model?”, or “What was your first pet’s name?”.
Card Readers: Skimming information from bank or credit cards using compromised or hand-held card readers, and creating clone cards.
Passports: Using ‘contactless credit card readers’ to acquire data wirelessly from RFID-enabled passports
Shoulder-Surfing: Watch out for individuals who discreetly watch or eavesdrop on others providing valuable personal information. This is particularly done in crowded places because it is relatively easy to observe someone as they fill out forms, enter PINs on ATMs or even type passwords on smartphones.
Computer Breaches: computer breach programs can attack browser security or use malware such as Trojan horse keystroke logging programs or other spyware to hack computer networks, systems, and databases to obtain personal data, like names, addresses, Social Security and credit card numbers often in large quantities.
Fake job offers or ads: Advertising or posting bogus job offers to collect resumes and applications that disclose applicants’ names, home and email addresses, telephone numbers, and sometimes their banking details.
Insider Access: Tapping into system insider access to abuse the rights of privileged IT users, in order to access personal data on their employers’ systems
Infiltration: Penetrating organizations that store and process large amounts or particularly valuable personal information.
Brand Deception theft: Impersonating trusted organizations in emails, SMS text messages, phone calls, or other forms of communication to dupe victims into disclosing their personal information or login credentials, typically on a fake corporate website or data collection form.
Brute-force hacking: attacking weak passwords and using inspired guesswork to compromise weak password reset questions
Browsing: Scanning through the internet on social networks, to steal personal details published by users, and using this information to appear more credible in subsequent social engineering activities or scams. Guessing Social Security numbers by using information found on Internet social networks such as Twitter & Facebook.
Stealing Mail: Diverting victims’ email or post to obtain personal information and credentials such as credit cards, billing, and bank/credit card statements, or to delay the discovery of new accounts and credit agreements opened by the identity thieves in the victims’ names.
Old-fashions con: Using false pretenses to trick individuals, customer service representatives, and help desk workers to disclose personal information and login details or changing user passwords/access rights (pretexting)
Checks: stealing back checks to acquire banking information, including account numbers and bank codes.
Social Engineering: Befriending strangers on social networks and taking advantage of their trust until private information is given.
Signs your identity may have been stolen
The majority of identity theft victims don’t realize that they are a victim until it has negatively impacted their lives.
Many people don’t find out that their identities have been stolen until they are contacted by financial institutions or discover suspicious activities on their bank accounts.
According to an article by Herb Weisbaum, everyone in the US should assume that their personal information has been compromised at one point. So its really important to watch out for warning signs your identity has been compromised. The following are eleven indicators that someone else might be using your identity.
Credit or debit card charges for goods or services you are not aware of, including unauthorized withdrawals from your account.
Receiving calls from credit or debit card fraud control departments warning of possible suspicious activity on your credit card account.
Receiving credit cards you didn’t apply for. Receiving information that a credit scoring investigation was done. They are often done when a loan or phone subscription was applied for.
Checks bouncing for lack of enough money in your account to cover the amount. This might be as a result of unauthorized withdrawals from your account.
Sudden changes to your credit score may indicate that someone else is using your credit cards.
Bills for services like gas, water, electricity not arriving in time. This can be an indication that your mail was stolen or redirected.
Not being approved for loans because your credit report indicates that you are not credit worthy.
Notification from your post office informing you that your mails are being forwarded to another unknown address.
Your yearly tax returns indicating you’ve have earned more than you have actually earned. This might indicate that someone is using your federal or state/provincial ID to report their earnings to the tax authorities.
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