Getting to know someone on an Internet dating site requires the exchange of personal information. Things like where you grew up, your hobbies, pet’s name and favorite shopping destinations provide personal data that is essential to building an online relationship. Unfortunately, it’s also the same information that fraudsters use to steal peoples’ identities and commit ID fraud and a host of other unwanted activities.

In the recent article, “How to steal an identity in seven easy steps,” software developer, Herbert Thompson, shows us just how easy it is to collect personal information that allows fraudsters to gain access to somebody’s personal and financial online accounts. This is disturbing news, especially when you consider that roughly 40% of web users are ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to provide their personal information in one of six online scams, like the Ponemon Institute, commissioned by PC Tools, recently discovered after interviewing over 1,000 UK web users.   (more…)

Today’s traveler, whether on business or vacationing at their favorite surf or ski resort, is becoming increasingly dependent on their electronic devices. While our smartphones, tablets and laptops allow us to be more business efficient and instantly share our travel moments with family and friends, our favorite handheld devices are also vulnerable to being lost, stolen or hacked while on the road.

In the USA Today article, “Travelers at high risk of identity theft, experts say,” travelers lost a total of 11,000 mobile devices at the busiest U.S. airports this year. And that only accounts for items lost before travelers reach their intended destinations. In a study of 200 data breaches, Trustwave’s SpiderLabs found that hotels and resorts are prime targets for crooks stealing financial information, with respondents saying 38% of data thefts took place at hotels or resorts.

John Sileo, an identity theft and fraud expert who experienced identity fraud first-hand while traveling to Disney World, says people can be particularly vulnerable when they are unfamiliar with their surroundings. In his case, he suspected someone took a photo of his card number at the theme park before his bank informed him that his credit card had been shut down when someone attempted to make $3,000 worth of online charges to his card. (more…)

Much like the annual gains of any financial market, the cyber crime economy is growing.

According to the article, “Cyber crime hit 431 million adults in 24 countries,” a recent Norton cybercrime report found online crime jumped 3% compared to its 2010 study, costing fraud victims more than $388 billion worldwide over the past year.

Eating up 35% of the global cybercrime bill were U.S. fraud victims, who spent $139 billion on cybercrime last year. That amounts to 141 victims per minute, an alarming statistic even for Norton’s consumer cybercrime expert, Helen Malani. (more…)

In a relatively short period of time, mobile devices have changed the way people access the Internet. So much so that mobile web traffic is expected to overtake desktop access by 2015.

Banks understand this, which is why they’re pushing mobile payment apps that are designed to make mobile banking and mobile payments faster and easier for their customers directly from their smartphones and tablets. However, because mobile transactions between banks, merchants and mobile devices aren’t as closely guarded as they are over the Internet, cyber criminals are taking advantage of this vulnerability by targeting banks and online businesses with their mobile devices.

The recent article, “Theft gangs using smartphones to steal bank card numbers,” provides another example of how Web services and new mobile devices are being used by criminals to commit financial fraud. While the rise in identity fraud is leading banks and other financial institutions to consider security tools that help protect them and their customers from mobile transaction fraud, Donald Malloy, business development manager for NagraID Security, said U.S. banks haven’t been too receptive to security measures that require customers to take additional steps such as more passcodes to authorize transactions because this creates an extra inconvenience when making a purchase. (more…)

Along with the enormous success of mobile phone sales, wireless carriers and resellers have to contend with a variety of issues around theft and fraud. Working closely with several carriers and resellers, we’ve seen four primary fraud threats that financially impact carrier business. They include:

1. Account creation / application fraud – In this case, a fraudster uses a stolen identity to apply for an account online to order phones and services.  After initiating a shipping scheme to obtain the goods, the fraudster runs up the phone bill until the carrier or identity theft victim uncovers the charges.Much like credit issuers, carriers perform comprehensive identity and financial background checks on applicants, however, the checks are on the identity theft victim.  By adding a device check at the front of the process (which looks at the computer or Internet-enabled device being used), carriers can quickly identify suspicious activity such as when the same computer initiates multiple applications under various identities, or if the computer being used has been involved in previous fraudulent activity. (more…)

There was a blog post recently on Wallet Pop titled “Online theft not the main cause for identity fraud.” In it, author Josh Smith does a good job calling out the differences between identity theft and identity fraud. In short, identity theft is when someone’s personal identity information has been stolen; identity fraud is when that stolen information is used to commit financial fraud or some other kind of crime. While the two are inevitably related to one another, they are not the same thing.

In the case of identity theft, it’s a common myth that malware, botnets, and other internet scams are to blame; however, Smith cites a study done by Travelers Insurance that actually shows that the majority (78%) of incidents of identity theft actually occur offline. This indicates that peoples’ fears may have been, at least in part, misplaced. Individuals would benefit from an increased awareness and vigilance in all aspects of their life, not just online.

This being said, there still remains the question of identity fraud: what happens once someone’s personal information has been compromised? This is where online businesses still need to be on high alert, because online sites (and not physical stores) will likely remain the No. 1 target of identity fraud. Here’s why:  (more…)

In the UK, identity fraud has been identified as one of the fastest growing crimes in 2009. In response to this alarming news, the UK government is kicking off a National Identity Fraud Prevention Week to try to raise awareness about the issue and focus on what individuals and businesses can do to protect themselves.

With a website devoted to the new campaign, it’s easy to take a quick look at some statistics about fraud in the UK, and some of them are quite frightening. While the information on the site is based on UK numbers, the concerns that those statistics raise are likely applicable in many countries, as identify theft is a world-wide problem. (more…)