Today’s Washington Post contains an interesting article about identity theft. Some identity thieves enlist unwitting employees of financial institutions into supplying them with personal information:
Some Interesting Facts About Identity Theft
Category: Cybersecurity
Posts about Cybersecurity by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
More Data Lost: 1.3 Million Student Loan Recipients
From CNET: About 1.3 million customers of a Texas provider of student loans are at risk of ID fraud, after a contractor lost computer equipment with sensitive information on them. The equipment, which was not identified, contains the names and Social Security numbers of the borrowers, the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company said in a statement […]
The FBI and Illegal Cell Phone Records For Sale
A while ago, I blogged about companies that were selling records of the numbers people call on their cell phones on the Internet. Congress is currently conducting an investigation into these companies. Today, Bob Sullivan at MSNBC reports:
Public Records and Identity Theft
There are new details to report about the famous Hamilton County public records website. Several years ago, the clerk of courts of Hamilton County, Ohio placed a wide range of public records online. Many of the records had extensive personal information about individuals, including Social Security Numbers and home addresses. The Hamilton County website garnered […]
Website Hacking Blackmail
A while back, I wrote about the Million Dollar Homepage, where Alex Tew, a student, created the idea of selling a million pixels on a website to advertisers for $1 each. His plan was successful, and he recently reached his goal of raising a million dollars in just a few months. But the story attracted some unsavory criminals […]
ChoicePoint: More Than 145,000 Victims?
ChoicePoint just won’t be outdone. They were, after all, the company that started all the extensive attention on data security breaches. Back in February 2005, ChoicePoint announced that it had improperly sold personal data on about 145,000 people to identity thieves. Pursuant to a California data security breach notice law, ChoicePoint notified the affected individuals […]
Identity Theft Fears and Online Shopping
From a recent survey: Nearly half of U.S. voters say they don’t shop online because they fear identity thieves may capture their bank-account information, according to a survey released on Wednesday by a technology-industry trade group. These fears are heightened because of the rash of security breaches in recent months. I previously posted about these breaches here and here.
Don’t Know Much About Privacy . . .
More interesting results from a recent national telephone survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The report states: The survey further reveals that the majority of adults who use the internet do not know where to turn for help if their personal information is used illegally online or offline. The study’s findings suggest a […]
Just How Gullible Are We?
Why do we keep getting that Nigerian money scam email? Who could possibly fall for it? One would think that by now, the gig wouldn’t work – people would be on to it – and those pesky spammers would move on to another scam. But alas, somebody out there must be falling for it. A recent national telephone survey by the […]
Data Leaks: Déjà Vu All Over Again
Déjà vu. All over again. And again. Yet another data security break, as if the scores of breaches announced earlier weren’t already enough. A short while ago, I posted about a tally of the security breaches indicating that the personal data of over 5 million people had been leaked or improperly accessed. Now this, from the AP [link […]