Examples Of Online Identity Theft

Online Identity Theft

Identity theft is the “appropriation of someone else’s personal or financial identity to commit fraud or theft” (Milne et al. 217) Identity theft can occur by physical or digital means. Understanding how identities can be stolen electronically is crucial to preventing identity theft. In addition to education, there is software and other preventative methods to prevent identity theft.

An important way to prevent identity theft is to understand various ways people can steal an identity. Thieves can steal an identity through online data collection, scams, and through third party interaction with businesses. Online data collection allows thieves to be more anonymous, although few action online are truly private. Thieves

These techniques have evolved over take and take on a variety of names. Phishing occurs when a seemingly trustworthy company e-mail someone pretending that they need the person to update their personal information. The link the “company” provided is actually the scammer’s identical webpage. This is one way scammers can steal password information. Spearphishing occurs when the sender impersonates an employee in order to steal a password. One of the more recent techniques is SMSishing. A short text is sent to a person that confirms a sign up to a service or website. The text may say they will be charged unless they go online and cancel the service (Acoca 13). Scamming is very dangerous for the general public, and easy for the scammer. It is important to be wary of scams.

Final ways a thief can steal one’s identity is through businesses. This mainly occurs when data is compromised. Data may be compromised when it is on an employee’s computer, via data transfer, or data transfer to an online business. An employee can also steal the data that is electronically stored (Milne et al. 218). Once again, it is important to be aware of where one enters data and who has access to the

First, they include paying attention to private policies. This protects user information because the user is aware if the corporation can give out private information to third parties. It is better to only give out information to those companies that do not give out information to third parties. This leads to making sure online forms are secure. Make sure the website has an SSL certificate, content does not from third parties, and ask if this data is really secure. If any of these are not true, then personal data is available for third parties. Another way to secure one’s privacy is to reject unnecessary cookies (Milne et al 219). This is important because cookies track where one goes and what one searches for. Thieves can access to this information.

Next, encrypt emails. Encrypting e-mails makes the text look garbled to those who do not have the password to decrypt it. Encrypting e-mails ensures that the only one reading an email is the person who the message is sent for. There are other tools such as anonymous remailers and anonymizers that allow one’s identity to be hidden while surfing the internet. They prevent identity theft, by keeping identities and personal information almost by hiding one’s tracks ((Milne et al