What the Heck is an Identity Breach (and Why Should it Affect Me)?
You bank at a major financial institution—one that isn’t hinting at bankruptcy or going up for sale. You check your credit card and checking statements carefully each month. And you use online passwords so indecipherable, even you can’t always remember them.
You’re safe. Right?
Not necessarily. By the time 2009 had completed its first month, a disheartening 45 data breaches had already been reported, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. As of Feb. 3 of this year, that was close to 70% more than last year at this time.
But what is an identity breach? Can it be prevented? And are you at risk?
The Ugly Truth
In short, an identity or security breach is when a criminal or group breaks into and accesses files from any company or institution. The thief’s ultimate goal is generally to cherry-pick the likeliest victims to pose as in order to fraudulently obtain loans, sign up at banks—or just plain commit theft of multiple individuals’ financial accounts.
In today’s techno-savvy world, this is usually, though not always, accomplished via computer (“hacking”), but some old-fashioned crooks do things the hard way by physically breaking into establishments and stealing paper files.
Data breaches can be any size, but thieves often go for mass theft of files as was witnessed in the breaking into of a potential 100 million customer cards of Heartland Payment Systems in January and the hacking of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer last December.
Could You Become a Victim?
Yes. Anyone can become a victim of an identity breach.
Most major companies have stop measures in place to detect and halt certain types of illegal intrusion into their databases. However, experts observed during 2008 that even anti-breach software that complies with industry standards may be lacking, with potential hacker “ins” still unexplored or undetected.
This means that even if, for example, a financial institution or payment organization is in accordance with its industry’s safety requirements, ID thieves often remain one step ahead, ready to find the one loophole where they might breach the system and take anyone’s data…even yours.
How it’s Done
There are various ways of electronically hacking files, but a few are currently the most popular among would-be data thieves.
These usually include so-termed malware, which refers to software deliberately designed to illegally infiltrate a computer or network of computers. (The phrase is a combination of the words “malicious” and “software.”)
Malware includes certain types of computer viruses, spyware, “worms” (which use a network to replicate and re-send themselves from database to database), adware and Trojan horses (seemingly innocent functions that are invisibly harmful, such as “free” desktop wallpaper that infiltrates your information while it’s running or uploading).
Where to Go for Protection
Currently, the government is working on a number of programs (both on the federal and local levels) to waylay this increasing and disturbing crime trend.
In conjunction with anti-breach software and other measures, the hope is that eventually, the major players in the data breach world will be flushed out and brought to justice.
But there’s a learning curve here. By the time a data breach is reported (and many, according to experts, don’t get reported at all), the criminal has had his or her fun and may be long gone. It’s only then that law officials can begin trying to crack a code that may have been years in the making by an identity thief or group.
You can help law enforcement protect your files by doing your part to watchdog your own accounts. One method is to download transaction reports for all of your credit cards and bank accounts twice a month or so and go over each transaction you’ve made against your receipts.
Depending upon how many financial accounts you hold, this may become cumbersome, but there are credit monitoring services available that can alert you to unusual activity, even the overuse of your name on the internet. These are often quite reasonably priced and are becoming more and more popular as consumers are working to protect themselves from the hassle and heartbreak of identity theft.
Do your homework, learn about data and identity breaches and make sure you monitor your financial accounts…so you can stay one step ahead of a data crook who wants your number.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:37 am
[...] in the week we discussed data breaches, how they might happen and their growing occurrence during the past two to five [...]