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ID Fraud – More Than Just Your Computer
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-10-25
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I received a letter from my mortgage company telling me my information had been compromised. It would seem my primary lender had a security breach in the form of stolen laptops. They had a private firm working on software and this firm left the computer with all my data in the trunk of their car. Those computers were stolen.
 | | Another Victim of Identity Theft? |  |
Editor's Note Identity theft is a major problem and will continue to be a major problem. Do you want to hold the banks' feet to the fire? Tell us about it at WebProWorld.
One goes through the motions when something like this happens by contacting the credit bureaus and firing off vicious phone calls to the offending institution (one of the largest banks in America). It's frustrating to know that the only thing between my financial security and a major disaster is a double password set-up and the hope that whoever stole the computer lacks the knowledge to get at them. The entire experience was acidulous to say the least.
So what's being done to protect you and me? Not much by the way it looks. While standards have been introduced it seems like there's not an overwhelming desire to secure many of these transactions and in honesty, in some cases, it's darn near impossible.
At this stage, it's just not a major priority. As CNET pointed out in a recent feature, in 2003, only 10 million U.S. residents were the victims of ID theft based on FTC statistics. They pointed out a comparison of 20 million car crashes a year. Those numbers can be misleading though. The cost is less on the individual and more on the businesses.
Even though credit card companies say "Zero Liability," that's not really the case. A recent study published by Javelin Strategy and Research with the FTC showed $52.6 billion lost to businesses. The average fraud victim spends 28 hours out of the week and loses an average of $5686.
The odds will eventually catch up though as criminals start to realize there's much more money to be made from the stolen identification information. When checking out the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, one can begin to see the depths of this problem with just 2005. The biggest breach came from the 40 million identities compromised by CardSystems.
Another major point is the way in which the identity information is gotten. In many cases, the Internet is not the culprit. Identities are compromised all over the place. Through bank errors, statement's stolen out of the mail or trash and even when you go visit your favorite restaurant.
Statistics do show that identity fraud isn't increasing but it's not decreasing either. It will remain a problem as long as it's so easy to access credit card numbers and other information from your favorite financial institutions. Until those institutions are forced to eat the $52 billion, then one won't see any real action on it.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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