identity theft

Identity theft: what is it?

Identity theft involves using a person'  particulars like name, date of birth, credit card details, etc to commit fraud by pretending to be someone they are not. Different types of identity theft includes:

• Financial identity theft (using another's identity to obtain goods and services) 

• Criminal identity theft (posing as another when apprehended for a crime) 

• Identity cloning (using another's information to assume his or her identity in daily life)

• Business/commercial identity theft (using another's name to obtain credit)

• Having someone pretending to be you can end you up in all sorts of trouble that can be very complicated in trying to clear up. It can affect your credit rating, and your ability to get loans.

How does it happen?

Common ways that you can become victims of Identity Theft include:

• Giving out account details or passwords to other friends

• Not installing any security software on computers thus getting exposed to a range of online threats

• Leaving an electronic trail of personal information at schools, friend's houses or Internet cafes which can be followed by others.

• Losing personal storage devices such as memory sticks, phones or personal digital assistants which may contain personal information. Often these devices are not password protected

• Stealing mail or rummaging through rubbish containing personal information (dumpster diving)

• Retrieving information from redundant equipment, like computer servers that have been disposed of carelessly, e.g. at public dump sites, given away without proper sanitizing etc.

• Researching about the victim in government registers, internet search engines, or public records search services

• Stealing payment or identification cards, either by pickpocketing or surreptitiously by skimming through a compromised card reader

• Remotely reading information from an RFID chip on a smart card, RFID-enabled credit card, or passport

• Eavesdropping on public transactions to obtain personal data (shoulder surfing)

• Stealing personal information in computer databases (Trojan horses, hacking)

• Advertising bogus job offers (either full-time or work from home based) to which the victims will reply with their full name, address, curriculum vitae, telephone numbers, and banking details

• Infiltration of organizations that store large amounts of personal information

• Impersonating a trusted company/institution/organization in an electronic communication to promote revealing of personal information (phishing)

• Obtaining castings of fingers for falsifying fingerprint identification 

• Browsing social network (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc) sites, online for personal details that have been posted by users

useful links

http://www.ycentral.com.au/net-safety