Social engineering is a non-technical form of intrusion that uses deception to gain your trust and trick you into providing personal information that you usually would not give out freely. (Rouse, 2006). Social engineering is one of the biggest techniques used in identity theft. Computer technology has radically changed the world and how society communicate with each other. When computer technology was in its infancy, business companies were the only member of society that had to be concerned about social engineering attacks. With the arrival of mobile and personal computing for nearly everyone, securing personal data has become an issue for everyone, not just business organizations. If you’re personal information is not protected, the consequences can be catastrophic. Today, there are spammers, hackers, virus developers, and identity thieves that poses a real risk to your privacy and even more importantly, your finances. (Williams & Sawyer, 2013).
Social engineering practioners are using a variety of methods to retrieve your data; they can use the phone, the internet, or even show up in person to install malicious software. Additionally, if you visit an unscrupulous website, or even access unauthorized locations your information could be retrieved (Heimeri, 2014). Criminals will often take weeks and months researching a company before hacking into it. Often they will employ the “dumpster diving” technique, where they search through a company’s or individual’s trash looking for sensitive information, like bank statements and pre-approved credit cards applications. In order to prevent hackers from finding this material, everyone should shred all documents containing personal information. The hackers will check the compa...
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...you could down load a maliciousness virus that will provide them your sensitive information (Williams & Sawyer, 2013). It is critical to have firewalls in place to minimize social engineering on your personnel or companies network systems. But the first line of defense, in protecting your company against the loss of critical business information is to ensure that your employees are trained in security awareness (Goodchild, 2012). Hacker can still gain access to your systems even if you have the best security controls in place. It starts with your employees, you have to increase their awareness of how social engineering operates. If they know the signs, they will be able to prevent it. The most important thing is when you are on your personal or work computer, always remember PPI because you will never know who is on the other side of the computer networks.
Issa utilizes statistics to suggest ideas. He says, “The Office of Personnel Management’s security breach resulted in the theft of 22 million Americans’ information, including fingerprints, Social Security numbers, addresses, employment history, and financial records” (Issa). Issa also adds that, “The Internal Revenue Service’s hack left as many as 334,000 taxpayers accounts compromised‑though just this week, the IRS revised that number to o...
Identity theft is a term used for describing criminal that uses individual’s identity without consent. A common crime of identity theft would be identity fraud. Many of the crimes are regularly connected with money-related issues (Reyns, 2013). With technology being commonly used nowadays we are getting more dependent on it for business, financial, medical, and other forms. As a result this became a target for identity thieves as well. The Internet provides us information and accessibility, but information being stored on the Internet eas...
About 15 million United States residents have their identities and information used fraudulently each year. Along the use of their identities, they also had a combined financial loss totaling up to almost $50 billion. Major companies such as Apple, Verizon, Target, Sony, and many more have been victims of consumer information hacking. In each of the cases, millions of consumers’ personal information has been breached. In the article “Home Depot 's 56 Million Card Breach Bigger Than Target 's” on September 18, 2014, 56 million cards were breached due to cyber attackers. Before the Home Depot attack, Target had 40 million cards breached. Company’s information is constantly being breached and the consumers’ are the ones who end up having to pay the price. If a company cannot protect the information it takes, then it should not collect the information.
The rapid growth in technology has been impressive over the past 20 years from television graphics and multi-purpose phones to world-wide connections. Unfortunately, the government is having trouble with this growth to protect the people from having their privacy violated due to the information being stored electronically. In “The Anonymity Experiment”, by Catherine Price, states how easily a person can be track and how personal can be lost. Also, in “Social Security and ID theft”, by Felipe Sorrells, states how social security numbers and personal identities can be stolen and how the government is trying to stop that theft. They both intertwine with technology and privacy though Price's article has a broad overview of that, while Sorrells's focus is mainly on social security number and identity thief part. Price and Sorrells shows that companies are taking too much advantage from the customer, the government, even though their trying, needs to start helping the people protect their privacy, and a balance between the amount of trust people should have giving out their sensitive records to which information is protected.
Social Engineering: What It Is and How to Help Protect Yourself. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.microsoft.com/security/resources/socialengineering-whatis.aspx
We are living in world that is growing in technology. Technology is evolving so rapidly, especially in ways that allow us to store personal information. For example, we can look up a purchase with no receipt at a retail store with a swipe of a credit card. Another example, we could go to the doctor and the nurse can print out a copy of all our health records that are stored in the computer by just typing in our full name. Although this may be a way to make things easier for us, it is also a way for people to take our information without permission and do what they please with it. People can hack into the database of retail stores and steal account numbers and people can just say your name and get your health history if the nurse does not ask for a form of identification. Information privacy is a growing concern for Internet and data users. In a report Protecting Privacy in an Information Age: The Problem of Privacy in Public, researched by Helen Nissenbaum of Princeton University, she states:
The Internet plays the biggest role in identity theft. On the Internet, a thief can hide from detection while stealing peoples’ identities from their homes, being able to steal peoples’ information one by one “then disappearing into another identity,” (Vacca 60). Internet fraud consists of two phases. The first being spoofing where a fake site is set up made to look like the real thing. Once that is completed the second phase, phishing, begins. This usually starts with an email that uses the
Richmond, Riva. "12 Ways Technology Threatens Your Privacy (and How to Protect Yourself)." Switched. N.p., 14 May 2009. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. .
Identity theft is done by a broad scope of offenders. Technology has brought about new vulnerabilities. The aim of our report is to better define identity and identity theft. Define the role of technology in aiding the crime. The report also states some legal issues and legislations both national and local.
One of the most common types of cybercrime is identity theft. Identity theft occurs when someone steals another individual’s personal information, with the intent to illegally use the date for their personal benefit (Dimov, 2014). Sadly, it is not hard for an individual to steal another person’s identity. All one needs is an individual’s name, date of birth, and Social Security Number (Dimov, 2014). These three pieces of personal detail are often deemed the “Holy Trinity.” Perpetrators often use this type of personal information to commit financial fraud, such as applying for credit cards in the victim’s name (Baltzan, 2013, p. 294).
One of the things though is that we don’t only see schemes on social networks it could happen on any site that requires you to share information. Things like online shopping require you to share some of your personal information along with your bank information so if the site doesn’t have a strong security system it can have consequences. There are intelligent hacker1s and scammers that can breach the security system and steal your bank information. Three simple steps such as typing your name, birthdate, and zip code is more than enough for someone to try and steal your identity or use your information to their advantage. Theodore Claypoole in “Privacy and Social Media” said how the United States is trying its best to pass laws and keep up to date with new software in order to help protect people from falling into the realms of cyber criminals (Privacy and Social Media). As time passes technology is advancing and sharing our information is becoming easier, so it’s necessary for our security software to be up to
In the early years of computers and computerized technology, computer engineers had to believe that their contribution to the development of computer technology would produce positive impacts on the people that would use it. During the infancy of computer technology, ethical issues concerning computer technology were almost nonexistent because computers back then were not as multifaceted as they are today. However, ethical issues relating to computer technology and cyber technology is undeniable in today’s society. Computer technology plays a crucial role in all aspects of our daily lives. Different forms of computer technology provide unique functionalities that allow people to perform daily activities effectively and efficiently. In modern society, we use computer and cyber technology to communicate with friends and family via social networking sites, participate in business transactions, and get current news. Different tasks require unique technological feature in computer technology to function properly. Although, unique technological features increase people’s proficiency in accomplishing various tasks, unique technological features in computer and cyber technology increase security vulnerabilities. In many cases, the security vulnerabilities in computer technology are exploited by cybercriminals to invade people’s privacy, and steal people’s identity. We know that computers have no moral compass; they cannot make moral decisions for themselves. Essentially, people make moral decisions that affect others positively or negatively depending on how they use computer technology. Some of the biggest ethical issues facing people in the computing environment include privacy concerns on the web and identity theft. Privacy concerns...
The Internet is a connection of computers across the world through a network. Its origin dates back to the 1960s when the U.S Military used it for research, but it became more available to the public from the late 1980s. The World Wide Web was created in 1989 and browsers began appearing in the early 1990s. Over the last 24 years, the Internet has enabled people to shop, play, do research, communicate and conduct business online. It has also become cheaper and faster in performing different tasks. As much as the Internet has done immeasurable good to society, it has also dominated people’s lives and brought with it an array of cybercrimes. According to Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way we Think, Read and Remember (Carr, 2010). He debates on whether the Internet has done more harm than good. People use the Internet daily to exchange accurate information and constantly personal data such as credit cards, passwords and Social Security numbers are travelling through the network from one computer to another. With security measures put in place on the Internet, personal information remains confidential. But unfortunately, criminals have adapted to innovations in technology, and today, more people are increasingly becoming victims of cybercrime. The Internet has had profound effects on the public, both positive and negative. In this paper we will examine how access to personal information has led to an increase in online and offline crimes. The essay will particularly focus on ecommerce and hacking.
Cybercrime and social media are two major global problems that impact society. Today, are more accessible to computers and the Internet than in years prior. Nonetheless, perpetrators attack social media with illegal activity to facilitate their crime. There are different strategies or practices by various countries to combat cybercrime. However, identity theft, cyberbullying and phishing are three major type of cybercrimes which are impacting social networking websites.
A global network of interconnected computers enables people to share information in multiple ways. After becoming introduced to the public, the internet’s way of living began to take over how many people interact with each other and has become a part of everyday life. What people do not know is that, internet security is not as secure as believed; personal information on the internet is permanent and can leave people vulnerable to technology scams and predators. “Internet privacy” an online article, Wikipedia gives an example “posting things on the internet can be harmful to individuals. The information posted on the internet is Permanent. This includes comments written on blogs, pictures, and internet sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.” The internet allows people to send information from any location to share data and files. Several people around the world use the internet to transfer important personal information such as credit card numbers and passwords. Online predators try to attain vulnerable information on the internet so it can be used to gain access to citizen’s bank accounts or other personal information. People need to understand the dangers of freely placing large amounts of personal information on the internet through web sites such as Facebook, which basically gives out most of a person’s information on one site alone. What most people do not understand is that, once information is placed on the web it will virtually exist forever; there will always be a way that the government will be able to track this information. People need to understand the ways that they can better protect their personal information. Several vulnerabilities come with using online sites, understanding that fact and learning how to protect pe...