Identity Theft - How It's Done

The internet is everywhere these days and there is a certain amount of paranoia regarding internet security - but, to a certain extent at least, that is exactly what it is - paranoia.

It's easy to visualise master criminals across the globe hacking into computer systems and stealing your details in order to carry out their devilishly cunning schemes. However, the truth is a little more down to earth.

Tried and Tested Methods
In the past, the most common method of identity theft was the theft of a wallet. The thief would probably gain access to credit cards, library cards, driving licence, other membership cards and various other items which might be used to assume someone's identity. This method is still widely used but, from the criminal's point of view, it suffers from the drawback that it is usually noticed relatively quickly.

A report issued jointly by Javelin Strategy & Research and the Better Business Bureau in 2005 analyses the main methods used by criminals to obtain information used to carry out identity fraud in the USA during 2004. These are listed below: 

Position	Method	%
1	Lost or stolen wallet, chequebook or credit card.	28.8
2	Accessed as part of a transaction.	12.9
3	Accessed by friend, acquaintance or relative	11.4
4	Don't know, refused, no answer	11.1
5	Information accessed by corrupt employee	8.7
6	Stolen paper mail or fraudulent change of address	8.0
7	Obtained some other way	7.4
8	Computer spyware	5.2
9	Information stolen from garbage	2.6
10	Computer viruses and/or hackers	2.2
11	Emails sent by criminals posing as legitimate business	1.7

Be Careful Who You share Your Personal Information With
According to the study, 30.2 % of victims knew the person who assumed their identity.

The Role of The Internet
As can be seen from the table, the internet is used far less frequently than people may imagine to collect personal information to use in identity theft scams. Only 11.6% of the identified identity theft cases investigated during the study were attributed to computer related sources. Of these computer and internet crimes, spyware was responsible for around 50% - which can be mitigated against by using appropriate protection software.

Nevertheless, computer security and good internet usage practices should not be taken lightly. Even although the incidence of computer related identity theft is much lower than popular perception, it is still possible for poorly protected information to be used for crimes other than identity theft.  

However, even if computers and the internet are not major factors in the collection of the personal information used to carry out identity theft fraud, there can be no doubt that, once the information has been gathered, the internet makes it much easier to use this for profit.

Online ordering of goods and services requires no actual contact between seller and purchaser and transactions can be carried out relatively simply when certain items of information are available.