Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Hacking and Identity Theft

By Anna Grange


Due to the rise of identity theft incidents being reported yearly, many organizations are implementing their own identity theft programs to provide citizens education to fight this spiteful crime. Since becoming a victim of identity theft can be a life-changing experience, both emotionally and financially, learning to prevent the occurrence of this crime through identity theft programs can help you and your families live a normal and happy life without someone else meddling with your personal information.

Although the government has been working day and night to fight identity theft, busting these criminals could take several years, or sometimes, they can even live their own lives without being caught. For this reason, different public and private financial institutions with identity theft programs, such as the Federal Trade Commission's "AvoID Theft: Deter, Detect, Defend", are educating people to avoid identity theft while giving assistance to those who have victimized.

Steve Toporoff, an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, says that while there is a feeling among industry insiders that child identity theft is a major problem, it is very difficult to quantify because, in most instances, people have no clue that they are victims until years after the fact. A recent study based on identity scans of over 40,000 children in the U.S. conducted by Richard Power, Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon CyLab, found 10.2 percent of the children in the report had someone else using their Social Security number. That figure is 51 times higher than the 0.2 percent rate for adults in the same population.

Prior to the Internet age, child identity theft occurred most often at the hands of a relative who was using the minor's Social Security number to circumvent bad credit. While the Internet can serve as a wonderful resource tool for children, it can also bring a host of problems right to your doorstep. In addition to cyber-bullying and possible online predators, identity theft is now a problem, and it's going viral.

Entrust America's medical identity theft prevention and recovery services include: A 24/7 hotline to call if you suspect you have been a victim of medical identity theft. Entrust America's on-call identity theft specialists quickly determine whether a fraud has occurred and, if so, which of the over forty different kinds of identity theft have been committed.




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