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Nearly a quarter of all identity fraud victims are tech savvy users – expert comments’
August 2016 by Robert Capps, VP of Business Development at NuData Security
A new report by Experian has revealed that nearly a quarter of all identity fraud
victims in the UK last year were tech savvy mobile and social media users. The
group, which represented 8% of the population, also experienced a 17% rise in
victims when compared to 2014. Commenting on this news below is Robert Capps, VP of
Business Development at NuData Security, an award winning behavioural biometrics
company.
“This is yet another reminder for those of us who spend a significant amount of
time online, that we can’t become complacent when it comes to our online habits.
We all need to practice good password management, and be extra rigorous with our
social media information. The little bits of data, effectively electronic cookie
crumbs, that we leave around in our day to day interactions online, are very useful
to those with ill intent. When combined together, it’s quite simple for the bad
guys to connect the dots between these data points, and the credentials that protect
our banking, brokerage, and retail accounts, giving them easy access to more
sensitive information and financial assets. When we’re making this info freely
available in social media and then using it as keys in our online environments, we
have to realise that thieves are using more and more sophisticated tools to search
and find these common linkages.
When it comes to breaches we don’t really think about what happens to the data
after the initial theft, but this data doesn’t just disappear. It’s collected
and combined by the bad guys into a vast data set of consumer data, which is
extremely useful to today’s fraudsters to thwart existing online security and
identify verification systems. Data thieves sell this information, including social
security numbers, addresses, dates of birth etc., to aggregators, who
cross-reference and compile full identities to be traded and sold on the data black
market. This increases the value and usefulness of the data, which may have been
gathered from multiple data breaches, malware, phishing attacks, or social media
scrapping.
Eventually, there will be widespread adoption of better authentication tools that
companies can use to determine if it’s really you logging in. Meanwhile, make sure
you have adjusted your social media privacy settings and only accept connections
from those you personally know. A good password manager can help store and encrypt
your passwords, and make sure you rotate your passwords frequently. If you have a
choice, choose the least obvious two-factor authentication answers, for example:
“What’s your paternal Grandmother’s name?”, the answer could be the
“Philadelphia Eagles” (which only you would know was her favorite football
team). Check your bank statements and credit report frequently to ensure there is no
unusual activity."
