A security freeze on your credit information makes ID theft much more difficult
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The Department of Veterans Affairs has disclosed that information on more than half a million individuals and about 1.3 million non-VA physicians, both living and dead, is missing or might have been stolen. The information was stored on a portable hard drive that was being used by a VA employee at the department's facility in Birmingham, Ala.
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Blog: Auditors say only a fraction of largest intrusions in recent years showed clear evidence of resulting identity theft, but they admit that's not always easy to gauge.
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Not compulsion - sign here to end the pain... "Various forms of coercion" could be used to accelerate the rollout of ID cards, the idea being that ID cards will remain 'voluntary' for as long as possible, while not having an ID card will become more and more uncomfortable. This, precisely what the government has intended to do all along, is stated baldly in an Identity &amp; Passport Service leak cited by the Sunday People.â¦
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An unprecedented analysis of closed-case data provided by the Secret Service indicates that even an ID-theft conviction provides no better than even odds of jail time for perpetrators. And the median take from an ID theft is no small potatoes, either.
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GNUCitizen is describing an apparent vulnerability that could trick people into revealing personal data.
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Credit repair services aren't all they're cracked up to be.
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Until now, it was harder to get a Blockbuster card than to get into the U.S. from Canada. An explainer on the new border identification requirements
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(InfoWorld) - Despite widespread media coverage of data breaches over the past year, identity fraud is actually dropping in the U.S., Javelin Strategy & Research Inc. reported Thursday. In fact, the cost of identity fraud was down 12 percent from Javelin's 2006 survey, at an estimated US$49.3 billion in losses. The number one source of ID fraud? A lost or stolen credit card. "ID fraud is down," said James VanDyke, Javelin's president and founder. "It hasn't been growing for several years, but we hadn't seen it drop." Nationwide, there were about 500,000 fewer victims, according to this year's survey, VanDyke said. Much of the drop can be attributed to improved antifraud practices on the part of consumers and businesses, he said. "Businesses are doing a better job of not granting new accounts [to criminals]," he said. And consumers are also monitoring their account activity more closely and reporting suspicious transactions to the banks much more quickly. Javelin based its findings on 5,000 telephone interviews with U.S residents conducted over three weeks last October. The survey follows a methodology established by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which released a similar study back in 2003. The Javelin research was sponsored by CheckFree Corp., Visa USA Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. The survey's findings are at odds with those of research firm Gartner Inc., which has reported that ID theft is on the rise. But VanDyke says that this is because Javelin's numbers include responses from a wider range of people, including those who lack Internet access. "Thirty percent of people in the U.S. are not on the Internet, and those people have a vastly different way of managing their finances," he said. According to Javelin, there are also important differences between the way rich and poor people react to ID theft, something that VanDyke describes as a "fraud detection digital divide." "The low-income people essentially run away from purchases and they run away from the Internet," Van Dyke said. Affluent people, on the other hand, tend to embrace the Internet as a way to avoid having sensitive data stolen from the mail, and to keep tabs on their account activity, he said. Mail theft accounted for about 9 percent of all ID compromises. That's more victims than data breaches and phishing combined, according to Javelin's numbers. Javelin also found that young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 were at greater risk of ID theft, with more than 5 percent of respondents having been victimized. "They're being haphazard and as a result, they're being victimized," VanDyke said. "They're not protecting their PCs with antivirus software and firewalls.
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Identity theft victims are also losing more money and getting less of it back, research shows.
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As a record number of people buy holiday gifts online, consumers should take steps to reduce their risk of having their personal details stolen.
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Data breaches contribute less to ID theft and fraud that most people think, according to a recent survey by Javelin Strategy & Research. Losing your checkbook or wallet is more likely to put you at risk.
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By Paul Wenske, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Jun. 8--If you're like lots of Americans, you're increasingly wary of identity theft.
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Overdue debtors beware: You may not be able to rely on Caller ID to screen out those annoying bill collectors much longer. A California entrepreneur has a plan to bring the hacker technique of Caller ID spoofing
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Despite growing fears about online fraud, a new study finds that most cases of identity theft originate offline.
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An innocent financial background check can send ripples through your credit file.
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By Anonymous  Computer Security PEOPLE who use their home computers to access Thrift Savings Plan accounts can be vulnerable to having their personal information stolen.
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Now there are tools available online to safeguard against the theft of Social Security numbers.