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The F.B.I. says identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the United States.
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TRAVEL IDENTITY THEFT: On holiday? Be wary -- identity thieves could be lurking: More than a third of the 686,000 complaints that the Federal Trade Commission received in 2005 were about identity theft, making it the No. 1 reported problem. Travelers should be careful where they discard boarding passes, because some contain information. This spring, data security expert Adam Laurie performed an experiment for the Guardian newspaper in London. Using only the information on a British Airways boarding pass found in the trash at a London train station, he bought a ticket in the passenger's name and accessed his information using the frequent-flier number on the boarding pass. Never asked for a password, Laurie was able to access the passenger's passport number, issue date, issuing office, nationality, country of residence and date of birth. MORE
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CHILDREN IDENTITY THEFT: A year ago, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff warned us about an unprecedented epidemic of illegal immigrant-driven identity theft targeting our children. In fact, according to the Attorney General's Office, the identities of thousands of Utah children have been stolen by illegal immigrants who need Social Security numbers in order to get jobs and credit. MORE
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CHARACTER IDENTITY THEFT: Stolen-ID nightmare finally ends -- A man spent almost 8 weeks in an Osceola jail. A photo could have freed him sooner. After nearly eight weeks in jail, Hector Omy Collazo pleaded with deputies one last time: Let me go. You have the wrong man. A criminal stole my identity. MORE
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CREDIT IDENTITY THEFT: The Scramble to Protect Personal Information -- In February last year, a magnetic tape with information on about 120,000 Japanese customers of its Citibank division disappeared while being shipped by truck from a data management center in Singapore. The tape held names, addresses, account numbers and balances. It has never turned up. And this week the company revealed that it had happened again - this time the loss of an entire box of tapes in the care of the United Parcel Service, with personal information on nearly four million American customers. When so much commerce is conducted online and when just a few bits of stolen data - a Social Security number, a name, an address, a date of birth - can be turned into cash by opening false credit accounts, thieves have proved themselves skilled at getting the information they need. MORE
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SOCIAL SECURITY IDENTITY THEFT: The secret list of ID theft victims -- Linda Trevino, who lives in a Chicago suburb, applied for a job last year at a local Target department store, and was denied. The reason? She already worked there -- or rather, her Social Security number already worked there. Follow-up investigation revealed the same Social Security number had been used to obtain work at 37 other employers, mostly by illegal immigrants trying to satisfy government requirements to get a job. MORE
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MEDICAL DATA IDENTITY THEFT: Medical group: Data on 185,000 people was stolen --A California medical group is telling nearly 185,000 current and former patients that their financial and medical records may have been exposed following the theft of computers containing personal data. MORE
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DRIVERS LICENSE IDENTITY THEFT: Illegals Charged in Bogus Driver's License Scam -- WASHINGTON -- Thousands of illegal immigrants have obtained driver's licenses in three states, federal authorities said Thursday, highlighting a security hole that the Sept. 11 hijackers exploited. Three employees of Florida's motor vehicles agency were among 52 people arrested in a bribery scam that put driver's licenses in the hands of at least 2,000 illegal immigrants, officials said. The case, announced Thursday, follows similar arrests in Michigan and Maryland over the past week. "With a valid driver's license, you establish an identity," said Michael Garcia, assistant secretary of the Homeland Security Department. MORE
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PERSONAL INFORMATION IDENTITY THEFT: Pharming Attacks Target the Web -- Surfers may be unknowingly redirected to malicious Web pages. A new round of so-called "pharming" attacks is targeting the .com Internet domain, redirecting some Internet users to Web pages controlled by the unknown attackers. The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) issued a warning this week about the new attacks, which corrupt some DNS servers so that requests sent to those servers connect users instead to Web sites maintained by the attackers. The latest attacks use a strategy called DNS cache poisoning, in which malicious hackers use a DNS server they control to feed erroneous information to other DNS servers.
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“More people are victimized by identity fraud than almost any other crime, and, unfortunately, most don't even know they've been targeted until too late.”
-- DANIEL F. CONLEY, SUFFOLK DISTRICT ATTORNEY
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