"Secret" Personal Information That Isn't Really Secret
Personal information has been the target of sophisticated attacks that seek to trick people into revealing the information to fraudsters and identity thieves. Phishing emails with links to look-alike but phony banking websites that prompt unsuspecting victims to enter personal information are a good example of attempts by fraudsters and identity thieves to steal personal information. Other methods for stealing personal information, such as pharming and the use of keystroke loggers, are becoming harder for people to avoid. But no matter how the information is stolen, the result is the same: identity thieves can use the information to impersonate others, causing harm to the victim in several ways:
- Thieves can use the information to gain access to another person's banking or other accounts ("Account Takeover"), potentially draining the account of the victim's money.
- New credit accounts can be opened using someone else's identity information. When the thief doesn't pay the bill, the credit grantor goes after the victim to collect the unpaid bills. The victim's credit history and credit score are also damaged when the credit grantor provides negative information to the credit reporting agencies about the delinquent account.
- Medical services can be obained by an identity thief using someone else's identity information. As a result, victims may not only be billed for medical services they didn't receive, but the victim's medical history is likely to be contaminated by erroneous entries involving treatment or services provided to the imposter.
- Earnings and tax
information
may be reported to
the Internal Revenue Service using a Social Security Number that does
not belong to the person whose earnings are being reported.
The
victim whose Social Security Number is used may wind up owing taxes to the IRS that were actually incurred by someone else.
- Perhaps most disturbing of all, an innocent and unsuspecting person may be mistakenly arrested and detained by police because his or her identity information was provided by someone else during an arrest or other investigation.
These examples of identity theft point to the need for better ways to verify that people are who they claim to be.