Saturday, April 28, 2012

Avoiding Identity Theft

By Josie Lynn


A form of stealing someone's identity, by which someone can pretend to be someone else typically to access the resources of the person or obtain the credit and other benefits by that name, is known to us as Identity Theft. The term was originated at 1964 but literally the identity is not a thing to be stolen, thus the term used nowadays is Identity Fraud.

The linking between the data breach and identity theft is not easy to identify as the person does not get known by the theft of his or her identity and how their personal information are obtained by the others. There are different types of identity theft. Criminal Identity theft (Posing as another person when apprehended for a crime). Financial Identity theft (using another person's identity to obtain his or her credit and wealth). Identity cloning (Assuming another person's daily life). Medical Identity theft (Assuming medical care and drugs of another person). Child Identity theft (Using social security of a minor by stealing that identity).

There are many different techniques used to obtain a person's identity. Access of publicly published official data sheets by government officials. Use of USB sticks and other computerized devices like PC and also Servers. Skimming information from bank through credit card and other documents. Breaching in browser security an use of malicious software like Trojans to steal information. Spam mailing for bogus job offers. Observing the user's typing to steal name, password etc. Low security protected social sites hacking.

Synthetic identity theft happens when the people whose information is being tampered with never come across the real hacker. The tech savvy imposter combines information like social security number of that person with credit card and account details which resurfaces only at the time of credit card bills. Here the creditors are mainly affected as the victim is relieved of monetary loss which an impersonation is detected.

One of the most common forms of identity theft is medical identity theft. It involves snatching away of insurance details and launching false claims. The medical officers possessing inappropriate information of such scrupulous clients can land themselves in serious trouble. Child identity theft is when the social security numbers of the children are best bets for the imposter as there are no details of the children present and the crime goes undetected for years until the child grows up.




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