FBI, DOJ Falling Short on Identity Theft: Report

It has become widely known that identity theft is among the fastest growing crimes in the United States and any victim can tell you that it is also among the most violating and pernicious crimes.  One of the reasons why identity theft garners so much attention as truly the crime of the new century is that it is so difficult to catch the thieves. 

As this report states, the highest levels of the law enforcement community just don't seem to be getting it.  If not for the simple reason that this crime drains billions of dollars from our economy every year, then perhaps the trickle down effect should be taken into account:  what are the ill-gotten gains used for?  Yes, there are the many cases of shopping sprees using someone else's credit cards or posing as another person to gain employment or obtain health care benefits, however the larger issues are those of national security, drug pedalling and organized crime. 

Perhaps in the halls of Congress or the Justice Department, folks will eventually wake up to the fact that investigating and fighting this crime should be among the top priorities in keeping us safe as a nation.  They will, no doubt, find connections between these seemingly random acts of crime and a much larger, well-financed criminal element.

Facebook Moves to Standardize and Own Customer IDs

The need for a central repository for IDs is obvious in theory, but the reality of creating such a monster is quite challenging.  OpenID is a good attempt to give some control to the individual in managing their online identity, but it has many limitations.  The limitations are the creation of a cross-industry, cross-platform, worldwide identity for each individual, the management of such a database and the privacy concerns that are raised with every step in this direction. 

Be careful of hackers and key loggers....and your bank teller?

South Florida Identity Theft Ring Suspects Indicted

Identity theft is not always a high-tech crime.  As a matter of fact, the vast majority of identity theft cases are still relatively low-tech in nature. The easiest way to steal identities is still through a trusted source that has access to the information and it is also the hardest to detect.  No network intrusion tracks, no data logs...and the insider typically knows how to cover any tracks.

IT worker syphons from bank's customers

Bank IT worker charged in $1.1 million fraud - InformationWeek

Unfortunately, this is not a rare occurrence.  What we don't know is how law enforcement detected the fraud.  If a tip came from a victim, it is scary to think of how long this fraud would have lasted if this individual were part of a criminal organization.  Instead of opening accounts, this thief could have just sold the identities in the black market and he would have been much harder to trace.  This is every IT security employee's nightmare.

Employer stealing from Employee??

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20091031-NEWS-910310336

One of the objectives of this blog is to educate people about the risks of identity theft and point out potential sources of it. This is a fairly strange and sad set of circumstances that can happen to any of us. The victim in this tragedy will feel the effects of this crime for years and her life will never be the same.

Insider Threat to Banks on Rise

http://www.darkreading.com/insiderthreat/security/government/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220301087

While this article addresses the topic of insider threats from the perspective of a financial institution, it is quite revealing as this threat is one that makes any business vulnerable. The surveys that are cited are drawn from interviews with managers, which means it represents statistics of "known" cases only.

Any business that handles sensitive information of any kind must understand that, while security may be costly, it is still a fraction of the cost associated with the loss of a customer.

HHS website dedicated to prevention of Medical ID Theft

http://www.stopmedicarefraud.gov/

The Department of Health and Human Services launched a web site to educate professionals and consumers on the risks of medical identity theft and suggests ways to prevent it. This type of identity fraud has largely gone unmeasured by recent identity theft studies, but some insurance fraud professionals put the number at $25 billion annually, which is an additional 50% of the reported fraud loss from other types of identity theft. Big number!!

The reason it is so difficult to attain an accurate number is because most measurements revolve around victim surveys. Well, medical identity theft can go undetected for many years and victims usually don't realize that they are victims until unpaid medical bills find their way to the credit report.

Check out the link above for tips on protecting yourself and your family.