Identity Theft News

Identity Theft - Has it happened to you?

Article of Elmar Hilgers, Managing Director and Co-founder of IdentAlink Limited.

(PRWEB) December 12 2003 -- Imagine the shock of discovering that you’ve spent $500 in a top restaurant, $600 in a fashion store and $1500 in a jewelers. You may think that this is reasonable – if you actually enjoyed the meal, bought the clothes, and purchased the jewelry. Now imagine that while you were struggling to pay your mortgage, feed the kids and finance your car, that somebody else had stolen your identity and was using your bank details to finance their expensive lifestyle. How would you feel? Depressed? Angry? Ripped off?

Unfortunately, the problem of identity theft has reached mammoth proportions, and more citizens are now reporting that their identity has been stolen by an impostor to pay for a luxury lifestyle.

The figures speak for themselves
In the UK, industry estimates say that identity theft cost the country £20.6 million in 2002 – up from £14.6 million in 2001. And on the other side of the Atlantic, the picture is just as bleak: A CBSnews report in 2001 reported, “every 79 seconds, a thief steals someone’s identity, opens accounts in the victim’s name and goes on a buying spree.” But it’s not just inconvenience that occurs if your identity is stolen. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that identity theft costs the average victim more than US$1000 to cope with the damage from identity theft. Such damage may include out-of-pocket financial losses, as well as financial costs associated with trying to restore a reputation and correcting false information for which the criminal is responsible.

What is identity theft?
With the subject of identity theft being such hot news throughout the world, many people are now rightly concerned with how they can reduce the risk of being targeted. To understand how we can reduce the risk, we first need to understand what identity theft is, and how it works. There are several ways of committing identity theft, but all revolve around the notion that an impostor wrongfully obtains, and uses, another person’s personal data in such a way that fraud or deception occur. At its most basic level, identity theft may involve accessing funds from an individual’s bank or financial accounts. This may be easily achieved by obtaining secret passwords that an individual may keep for his or her Internet bank account or for use at the ATM. This method, known as ‘shoulder surfing’, involves watching the genuine customer punch a PIN number into an ATM, or listen in to a conversation where a credit card number is given over the telephone. It could even involve looking for written evidence of a PIN number or password left close to a computer terminal. Another increasingly popular method is to go through a citizen’s rubbish bins to obtain copies of his or her checks, credit card or bank statements, or other records containing information on name, address and telephone number.

In the very worst cases, identity theft may involve taking over an individual’s identity altogether. Where an individual’s identity is taken over completely, two types of fraud may occur: ‘application fraud’ or ‘account takeover’. Application fraud involves criminals using stolen or false documents to open an account in someone else’s name. Criminals may try to steal documents such as utility bills and bank statements, to build up usable information. Alternatively, they may use counterfeited documents for ID purposes.

Account takeover involves criminals attempting to gain possession of another person’s account. The criminal gathers information about the intended victim and then contacts the card issuer, masquerading as the genuine cardholder, to ask that mail be redirected to a new address. The criminal then reports the card lost, and asks for a replacement to be sent.

Reducing the problem of identity theft
There are many things that we, as consumers, can do to reduce our exposure to potential fraudsters. Firstly, it is strongly recommended that we treat any paperwork such as credit card receipts, bank statements and letters containing our contact details, with extreme care. Wherever possible, unnecessary documentation should be shredded before being put in the bin. Secondly, a number of technologies are now on the market, aimed at promoting privacy and helping consumers and businesses alike to beef up their security. One of the most interesting and innovative technologies currently gaining ground throughout the world is biometrics. Here, the technology provides strong proof that a person is who he or she says he is, and is much harder to steal or forge than traditional methods of authentication.

Why biometrics?
Your biometric identity is unique to you, and cannot be given to someone else for his or her use. This compares to other personal data – such as bank account or credit card numbers, passwords, membership cards or tokens, which could be used fraudulently if they fell into the wrong hands. Biometric technology can be used to recognize the identity or verify the claimed identity of an enrollee by measuring a distinct physical or behavioral characteristic. Physical biometrics include:
Face recognition
Fingerprint recognition
Iris recognition
Hand geometry recognition
Retinal recognition

Behavioral biometrics include:
Dynamic signature recognition
Gait recognition
Keystroke recognition
Speaker verification

Choice of which type of biometric to use for a situation is determined by a number of factors including cost, ease of use and robustness. In the IT security and Internet banking environment, fingerprint and face recognition technologies are making a significant impact, as they address customers’ requirements for economical and easy-to-use methods of security. For example, the BioPassport™ Enterprise family of security software from IdentAlink has been specifically designed to meet the security requirements of individuals and enterprises. BioPassport™ technology is fully OS platform and hardware independent and is designed for IT and physical access control. BioPassport™ uses its own hardware independent algorithms and software, which generate a new password with every login (instead of every four weeks), and is 1024 alphanumeric characters long (instead of 28). As a result, it is useful for providing single Sign-on strong authentication for login to networks, paid web content or web mail, encryption of data, encryption and digital signatures for emails and their attachments, and login for laptops, file servers or web-based corporate software.

Don’t be another statistic
As the problem of identity theft continues to grow, companies such as IdentAlink are at the forefront of developing new solutions that help address consumers’ security needs. BioPassport™ is designed to be easy to upgrade – recognizing that we, as consumers, need to regularly review our levels of security against identity theft. Make sure that you don’t become another fraud statistic: Think carefully about how you securely manage your paperwork and data to ensure that any bills issued in your name have actually been agreed by you!

About IdentAlink Ltd
IdentAlink Ltd is one of the world's leading biometrics technology companies. The company was founded in 1997 to provide solutions to the UK healthcare industry for staff security and drug control problems. IdentAlink Ltd now offers its BioPassport™ Family of Products, using facial and fingerprint recognition technology to provide the most comprehensive enterprise system of biometric security available. Other biometric technologies such as Iris or Voice are implemented on customers request. The company's proprietary technologies include BioPassport™ and BioIdent™, its own finger print recognition software which is entirely hardware (fingerprint sensor) independent.

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