Identity in Crisis

You hand over your credit card to the salesman at a store. He
swipes your card for authentication, and runs it through another machine
surreptitiously. Your card details get copied on to another blank card, which is
then sold to someone else. And when you look at your bill the next month, you
see you have no credit limit left!

Or, someone picks your pocket and your driving license is
missing. That ID is used to get new credit cards or cell numbers. Or, new bank
accounts used for illegal purposes-to give out checks that bounce, take loans
in your name-and, leave a trail of crimes that point only to you!

Or, your start-up company finds its identity on a fake
website that bears your name. It collects data from your customers and uses it
for business advantage.

In all these cases, someone is siphoning off money from you
or others, pretending to be you. That someone has stolen your identity. You are
a victim of identity theft.

And, without trying to raise false alarms, this new form of
theft is on the increase.

According to the Federal Trade Commission of the US, in the
last calendar year, 643,173 cases of fraud and identity theft resulted in losses
of more then $547 mn. Identity theft made up 39% of the cases. The US Postal
Inspection Service quotes the latest figures to be at 9.9 mn victims and $5 bn
in losses, and calls identity theft as the fastest growing crime in the country.

India isn't immune to ID theft. The Karan Bahree case, or
the Pune call center ex-employees siphoning off $400,000 from a bank's
customers are examples. So far these are stray cases and not the norm. Companies
in India, and globally, use stringent and expensive measures to ensure customer
data privacy. Inspite of this, even in the US, where there's a lot more
awareness about the issue, we still come across the ChoicePoint case, where the
data of 162,000 customers was compromised, or the MasterCard case in which 40 mn
credit cards were stolen.

So, how does an ID thief go about his work? There's
dumpster diving-retrieving personal paperwork from trash dumpsters; or
shoulder surfing-looking over a person's shoulder in a public office, when
he is filling up a form; or phishing or pharming. The new method of spear-phishing-emailing
a "select" few in organizations to get to ID info and trade secrets-is
catching on rapidly. The mail appears to come from someone within the company-say
the HR or IT dept-and asks you to update passwords, etc. The phishers then get
access into the networks. They install malicious software, steal private and
corporate data and use that for identity theft and extortion.

Stealing credit and debit cards or copying them are some
other ways to get to you. Getting your personal info from unsecured websites, or
buying information from an inside source, completing change of address to get to
your mail, stealing your personnel records...the ways for ID thefts are
countless.

And, the best prevention is to keep a very close eye on your
electronic transactions. Bank accounts that are used rarely, credit card
statements that are routinely disposed of, data that you provide to websites,
and much more. Give out the minimum possible information and that too when you
are sure about where it is going. Basic security measures like having
tough-to-crack passwords, destroying personal data before you throw junk away,
caution when responding to promotions even if they seem to be from reputed or
known sources, are some things to bear in mind.

Companies too have to put in place security measures and
train employees to identify hoax mail messages so that they don't fall for
virus or phishing attacks.

And if, in spite of that, you suspect that your ID is stolen,
report it immediately to the police. Close the bank accounts in question. If
your driving license is lost, report it to the transport authority and follow
their procedures. And if your customers are going to get affected, let them also
know.

Sadly, one does not see enough being done to create awareness and increasing
the education levels. Identity theft is not something that Hollywood cooked up.
It's a real issue and the faster we put in measures to curb it, the better for
us as individuals and as businesses.