Theme: ID Crime - The Web Can Minimize The Impact
April 30, 2009Identity theft – also known as ID theft, identity fraud and ID fraud – refers to a type of fraud where a criminal steals somebody else’s identity in order to profit illegally. It is one of the fastest growing forms of fraud in a lof of developed countries.
In the UK identity theft is growing at the rate of 500% every year and, according to Which Magazine, 25% of the populace have either suffered from identity theft or know somebody who has.
In the USA, a briefing issued by the Better Business Bureau reported that, in 2004, over 9 million Americans became victims of identity fraud with the total sum defrauded being $52.6 billion.
With statistics like this, it’s no wonder that there is a certain degree of concern about personal and world wide web security. After all, the internet is basically a mechanism for transferring information and the possibility that some of the information exchanged may be more than desired is never far from many world wide web user’s minds.
It’s simple to envision criminal masterminds around the globe using the internet to hack into Computers in order to gain access to information with which to advance their devilishly cunning schemes. However, as shown in the report, the facts of the matter are a tiny more simple and the web, far from making you more apt to identity theft, can help to significantly minimise the damage if you do fall victim this form of crime.
According to the Better Business Bureau’s research the main methods by which criminals gain access to information used for identity theft fraud are as listed below:
- Information accessed by corrupt employee. 8.7%
- Personal viruses and/or hackers. 2.2%
- Accessed as part of a transaction. 12.9%*
- Don’t know, refused, no answer. 11.1%
- Accessed by friend, acquaintance or relative. 11.4%
- Lost or stolen wallet, chequebook or credit card. 28.8%
- Information stolen from garbage. 2.6%
- Stolen paper mail or fraudulent change of address. 8.0%
- Computer spyware. 5.2%
- Emails sent by criminals posing as legitimate business. 1.7%
- Obtained some other way. 7.4%
* 12.9% due to transactions – 10.4% offline transactions, 2.5% on the internet transactions.
In total, when the instances where information was accessed during transactions are segmented into on the internet and offline transactions, only 11.6% of the information used to carry out identity theft fraud was obtained from personal.
Of this more than half was obtained by hugely reduced by installing suitable protection software and ensuring that this is kept updated.
Not only did the survey show that the internet was not a major source of fraudulently obtained personal data that those fraud victims who reviewed their credit records on the internet, ATM machines or other electronic methods suffered monetary losses which were, on average, 8 times lower when compared to those of victims who used old fashioned paper statements to review their accounts. This very significant reduction was attributed to the swift discovery of the fraud due to “real time” monitoring.
Of course, that’s not to state that you shouldn’t exercise caution when using the web or take care to protect the personal information which you might have stored on your computer. However, as long as you install suitable virus, firewall and spyware security, and keep this constantly updated, the should be more of a help than a hindrance when it comes to avoiding identity scams.