Identity Theft Check

The internet is practically in every home in Britten and online purchases becoming more and more common. Below I have compiled a short list of the different ways an id thief can steal your identity to help reduce the effects and increase knowledge of the various forms of online fraud.
Key logging – key logging is the process where a piece of hardware or software is installed on a user’s computer to capture all the key strokes made on the computer keyboard in the hope of gaining inputted usernames, pass words and banking information.
Website Pharming - Website Pharming is where a hacker will break into a legitimate site and redirect traffic to an identical looking fake site of their own making to try and get users to submit their personal details.
Viruses, Trojans, dialers and malicious software – these are generally programs that are designed to capture information or cause harm to a user’s computer and can contain smaller programs such as key loggers and browser hijacking scripts that redirect users to Pharming and Phishing sites.

Identity theft is a very large growing concern in today’s world. Below I have compiled a short list of preventative measures that can be taken to help keep your personal identifiable information safe.

Home, work or laptop computer – most people would not consider a personal computer as a security risk, but as soon as the computer is connected to the internet the computer becomes venerable to attack. The best way to combat this is to install hi-level security software that will protect against hackers and Trojans ECT. Another good way to help prevent security vulnerabilities is not to store hi-risk information such as bank details, scanned utility bills ECT on the computer as this information is potentially accessible to hackers and identity thieves.

Mobile phones – mobile phones have come a long way since they were just that “phones”. Today most mobile phones have some kind of data storage facilities in the form of taking notes, document editing ECT. It’s always best to never to store personal identifiable information into mobile phones as if these are lost or stolen you could be paying out more than just for the replacement of the phone.

Personal space – beware of your surroundings and who is listening in on convocations in busy environments such as shopping centers, as the person standing next in the queue could wish to steal your identity.

There are many types of scams people will use to get your personal details, one such recent scam was a post on monster.com for the application of a sales manager which seemed very legitimate (and why wouldn’t it, after all it came from a well trusted source like monster.com) but after people had filled out the application form asking for names, addresses, national insurance numbers and mothers madden name, their bank accounts were cleaned out and identity’s stolen. As you may have guessed in this day and age where jobs are few and far between this elaborate scam is pretty low and as a result thousands of innocent people have to take very high fraud precautions, and gaining potential bad credit ratings against their names due to credit cards being applied for in their names.

There are many ways of storing a individuals identity such as the governmental ID cards ECT, but there is a recent innovation that actually implants this information under your skin. These ID chips use RF-ID technology, similar to pet tagging system that is currently used for cats and dogs, these ID chips are supposed to store all your medical records so doctors can just scan your arm and find all your recent medical history. Personally i am a bit sceptical of the new ID chips due to all kinds of information being implanted on these chips that you probably wouldn’t want everybody to know. Just imagine walking down the street and somebody who wants to steal your identity just walks past you with an RF-ID reader in their pocket and can capture all your details and you wouldn’t even know which makes it a very big security risk. The changes of everybody agreeing to have these chips implanted into them is slim at best, but even the thought of having these intrusive implants and your personal information so freely captured is just for anyone’s concern.

Your identity is a very precious, you need your identity pretty much everywhere you go in today’s society, such as when applying for a mortgage, trying to gain credit on a purchase or when leaving the country to go on holiday.
So why would anyone want to impersonate me?
The main reasons why many criminal gangs want to steel anyone’s identity is usually down to money, but not in all cases. There has been an incredible increase in the number of stolen identities for the purpose of gaining illegal entry into the UK, so they can stay and work in the country in the belief of a better lifestyle. Identity fraudsters will use any means at their disposal by taking direct action such as routing through trash cans or more increasingly virtually across the internet by applying key loggers or Trojan viruses on un-patched computer systems. Be very careful to who you give your personal details to online.

With terrorism on the increase, airports are steadily implementing new technologies to combat new terror threats. One of the new technologies recently implemented to combat terror is face recognition cameras and software. Even though this is a fairly new technology its pretty simple in the way it works. It works by taking a still photograph of a potential suspect and then comparing the image to a national database of terror suspects, however there probably more advanced version used in airports today, as i have heard of new scanning technology that uses a laser to map a person’s facial features, so there’s less chance of scanning errors. Although this good in terms of combating terrorism, it may prove cumbersome and time consuming to passengers at terminals if people have to be individually scanned.

There is thousands of honest ecommerce website around on the internet, all trying to sell us products and services of all kinds. But with all these honest sites there are quite a few dishonest sites too. So how can you tell between the honest and dishonest sites?
Security: always check the URL of the page to see if its https secured before entering in any credit card information, this can also be checked by looking for the “padlock” image in the bottom information bar of the browser.
E-mails: even though this is not a strict rule, never enter your credit card information into a site that you got to from an e-mail link that you haven’t signed up to. This is not always the case as a site may have sent you an affiliate link that is perfectly legitimate.
Cloned sites: these are a little more difficult to distinguish from, as the sites usually are an exact copy of a legitimate site just for the sole purpose of steeling your credit card and banking information. Although in most cases i have come across there are a few slight differences that you can look at to tell them apart. The URL is one of the most common, in most cases this will differ from the actual URL of the original site. Another way to tell is poor design work, this is where the site has been cloned from the original and then edited without really knowing what they were doing as the end result is a poor copy with things missing or images stretched out of shape.
Also remember when entering in card information into a site, the site in question should never ask you to provide banking passwords, memorable words, pass codes or pin numbers ECT so never give them out. Install antivirus and anti-spyware software to prevent sites installing backdoor key-loggers, and Trojans. And always remember if the site doesn’t look legitimate then don’t buy or provide personal information to it.

With the credit crunch still with us and money being tight, identity theft is on the increase; however there are a few things to keep in mind to help prevent your identity being stolen.
- Bank statements and general utility bills:
These are a identity thief’s dream as they contain pretty much all the information such as your bank number, sort code, address and even your national insurance number , which can all be used to apply for a credit card in your name.

- Cash Machines:
Recently there have been allot of cases of bank card cloning due to some kind of device being attached to the ATM machine that will clone your card and pin number. In most cases these can be spotted pretty Easley as there will be a large card aperture or something unusual about the card slot. In some cases reported, the ATM machine front face has been completely replaced with a false one, and only found to be false when the entire ATM front fell off.

- Mobile Phones:
As technology gets more and more advanced, we tent to place allot of our personal identifiable information into our mobile phones which an identity thief would love to get their hands on. It’s surprising how many people i have spoken too do not apply a password to their phone to make it more secure, and then one day you will probably leave it on the bus or it will fall out of your pocket and if it’s a good quality phone, the chances are you will never see it again. But as technology moves on further, to the point where we are paying for things using our mobile, it starts to make you think about who may want to steel it or where we leave it. There have already been trial’s to test the possibility of mobiles being used as payment devices, such as Barclays bank had a trial on the London underground last year, where you could use the phone to pay for travel across London, which will completely deplete the need for the currently used Oyster card.

Ever since I was in school, kids have been going off at dinner to the shops trying to get cigs to smoke on breaks etc.     Shop owners aren’t exactly daft when a kid in a school uniform walks in to the shop asking for “a pack of 10 Sovereign please”, so they have been reverting to getting fake ID just for that  unadictive smoke at dinner because they think it makes them look cool.     The reason I may be a bit aggreshive is because I was one of those kids, and I wish I never started smoking, nevermind because of the reason.

the new “gadget” in the smoking arena are the new ecigarettes, which you can get refills for AND smoke inside, you can go in the pub for a pint and have a cig at the same with no bother at all, the problem used to be the fact that they looked so female and I wouldn’t be caught dead having one, but now they have addressed this and have brought out the manly version which to be honest I am thinking of getting.  With these you do not get any of the chemicals which are in normal cigs i.e. tar etc, it is a cartridge of liquid nicotine which entered your mouth as vapour.

This is definitley something that will curb the identity theft which goes on for cigs etc, as anyone under 18 wouldn’t be allowed to buy one.

There are many different methods used by fraudsters to acquire personal information about you. Quite often they’ll play on human weaknesses and who doesn’t have a weakness for bargains?

Discount vouchers are a great way of getting cheaper products and services, but be wary as to where they come from. Many discount vouchers come free with magazines or are handed out at events. Discount codes are often available on websites and these can be entered at the checkout point when buying online.

However, you may find discount codes being sent to your inbox. This is okay if the sender is authentic, but on some occasions, they may not be. If you are offered discount vouchers only after registering or handing over personal information, this is a good chance that this is an attempt to illegally gather information about you.

There are occasions when a genuine organisation might require or ask for your details. If you have gone directly to the company’s homepage and found the discount vouchers from there, you can safely assume that there are no problems. However, if you have clicked a link in an email, there is every chance that you aren’t on the company’s real website, in which case you should avoid entering any personal details whatsoever.