Browsing the internet is a traceable activity. Much like a hunter, cyber-criminal (hackers) will pick up a trace, monitor your activity trail, and will step-by-step – collect your personal information, in order to profile you and build a complete replica of your identity – for it to be abused. The trail you leave behind is all logged via digital cookies, and includes your online activity history, personal information such as login credentials, addresses, social security number and more. That information is being logged, collected, and will be potentially abused if in the wrong hands.
Identity theft is not a small phenomenon, proprietary to hackers any more. It is already a nationwide problem, and keeps scaling up, being adopted by bigger and more organized illegal groups.. At times, it ends up with a minor bank account hacking, but more often it turns into a more serious and lucrative business for those illegitimate groups and alliances who often collaborate towards a more vast crime.
One such occurred in a five-star hotel, where a group of cybercriminals stole 17,000 personal information records of past hotel guests. That information was used to create fake credit cards and ID documents. The hotel in turn, was unable to notify the victims, and the case ended up with hundreds of complete identities stolen and abused, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to those poor victims.
Rise of the digital crime
The number of digital powered crime cases has reached a staggering 48% in 2016. Some are extremely vicious, and end up in more than just a financial damage to the victims. The reason for that fast growing rate is the high profit associated with digital crime, and the relative safety associated with it versus old-fashioned crimes such as bank robbery for example. Some businesses are even willing to pay ransom to cybercriminals rather than selecting a legal approach and file a police report accordingly. Crimes like these are hidden and can go undetected for a long period of time, if reported at all.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, research shows that the most frequent misuse of stolen identity is bank account abuse. Back in 2010, when a digital crime was still at its starting point, 531,800 people between the age of 25 and 64, have reported being victims. Unfortunately, adults are not the only victims, 10% of all minors are also targeted since they have a rather clean identity and social security number, so if undetected, by the time they grow up, they have a large debt and even legal actions awaiting them for crimes they have never committed.
Abuse of a one’s personal identifiable information (PII) has become a game of cat and mouse. Everywhere you turn there is a potential risk. Even your sole presence on the internet, leisurely posting your date of birth and similar information, could be neon sign for hackers. How do they get access to all these information?
- Pretexting, using false pretense like a telephone company, calling to ask for your personal information.
- Stealing or bribing an employee at the targeted company to provide data.
- Phishing, sending an email with discount offers. They are waiting for you to click and open executable file and reveal your identity.
- Dumpster diving, searching for any paper such as old bills, medicines or anything else that has personal information.
When you have some information on social networks, it’s easy to just add the rest to the pile.
How do you protect yourself?
Criminals will always be present in a digital or real world. However, there are ways to prevent being marked as a target for cyber criminals:
– Change your home router password. Make it a sentence instead of a word, using a combination of caps, small caps, and numbers. Do not store them on your computer.
– Be careful what you post on the social networks,
– Clean your computer registry and history,
– Keep your device up to date in all regards to software updates,
– Request and review your credit report annually,
– Never give your SSN easily, definitely not over the phone, or over an unsecured webpage,
– Be very cautious with public WI-FI networks.
Living in a technology oriented world, undoubtedly crime evolves, and so should the users. Declaring presence on the internet, as fun as it may be, requires certain responsibility. Users should take actions in securing personal information and be more privacy aware.