Identity theft takes many shapes and forms.  It can come in the form the dumpster diver who is going your garbage and the garbage of everyone else in the building looking for the one who didn’t follow the steps towards securing their identity.  There has to be someone in the building who didn’t shred their bills, who didn’t destroy their pre-approved credit card statements, who didn’t tear the personal information off their prescription bottle before throwing it away.  That’s just the simpleton at work.  In the case of Sergey V. Strochak, he had much, much bigger fish to fry.  It seems our friend Mr. Strochak of Ukraine is wanted by United States officials for questioning in a case of hacking.  Not just a simple hacking case for this man, though.  He has been charged with the theft of 40 million plus credit and debit card digits.  It seems he along with his alleged accomplices are involved in the single largest case of hacking for the purpose of identity theft.  The Ukrainian man along with two other countrymen, two people from China, one person from the country of Estonia, and a Belarussian are wanted in connection with this enormous case.  It seems that the motley crew hacked into the networks of many US retailers and set up skimmer, programs to capture credit and debit card information, passwords, and login and account information.  The stolen information was then controlled in encrypted servers that were monitored from Eastern Europe as well as the United States.  Some of this highly sensitive and personal information was sold to other criminals, but most of it was used to access millions and millions of misappropriated funds.  In some cases, the password and account information was embedded onto blank dummy cards and used to access cash from automatic teller machines all over the world.  The man was arrested in New Delhi on his way home from vacationing in Goa.

Like any other criminals, identity thieves can be anywhere and are everywhere.  From the small time shoulder surfer watching you punch in your pin number at the drug store to the high tech savvy criminal who is sending you spyware and malware in the forms of pictures on your social networking site, there is no limit to how far criminals will go to get their hands on private and personal information.  This, after all, is the Information Age and simple ones and zeroes are worth millions and where there is a dollar to be made (or stolen as the case may be) there is a criminal waiting to make it (steal it.)  For example, in the Miami-Dade area, the potential identity thief might be waiting in the hospital to steal your records and sell them to ambulance chasing attorneys.  In what seems like a “torn from the headlines” kind of storyline on Law and Order, a husband and wife team partnered with a hospital employee and stole hundreds of patients’ files with information such has their names, address, phone numbers, and nature of their injuries.  The husband then turned around and sold those lists to attorneys in exchange for monetary kickbacks once the personal injury cases the attorneys filed and won came through.  The husband and wife team paid their hospital crony a thousand dollars a month to ensure that these names and information kept flowing.  Over the course of two years, the woman netted $27,000 in payments.  The husband and wife team who sold that information received over $85,000 from one attorney alone.  The judge in the case was so disgusted by the crimes that she refused to consider their plea bargains, stating that the punishments available to the pleas were nowhere near severe enough to fit the crime.

As in any kind of prevention plan, there are many steps to take to ensure that you are must less at risk that you might be if you didn’t take those steps.  The same, of course, is true when it comes to protecting yourself from identity theft.  Because of its social atmosphere, many people don’t associate their social networking site with breeding grounds for potential thieves, but like anyplace else on the world where one person meets another, there is always a chance that something is going to happen and someone is going to end up a victim.  So in addition to making sure that you don’t give out too much information in your handle, that you don’t accept the site’s recommendation for privacy, you don’t post any information online you don’t want everyone to know and to have access to forever, and not accepting friend requests from people you don’t know, there are some additional steps to take in order to ensure the safety of your identity.  Make sure the requests you receive from people are actually from those people.  Thieves will go to any lengths to see that their plans are carried out and it certainly isn’t a stretch to think that they would pose as someone you know to get something from you.  So if it truly is a friend, the shoot them an email or give them a call or at the very least, scour their profile to make sure that it is the very person they claim to be.  Be wary of “friends”  that have a super bare bones profile as well.  Simply supplying the very basic of information is way for potential thieves to set up a net to catch anyone who isn’t on their toes and doesn’t know what to look for.  Be proactive and involved in who you are connecting yourself with online.  Treat it as you would any other social interaction and guard yourself and your information.

When it comes to keeping your personal and private information personal and private on your social networking sites, there are a few steps that you can take to ensure that you have at least made some effort at making the job of stealing that information a little harder for any potential criminals that might have that on the brain.  In addition to making sure that your screen name doesn’t provide too much information and that you are not accepting the site’s recommended amount of privacy, consumers can go a few steps further into making sure they don’t find themselves on the messy end of an identity theft.  For example, the very act of being aware that every single thing you post on your social networking site is permanent is a great step to take.  There is no such thing as deleting information.  It never ever goes away.  So rather than take a giant Sharpie to print personal information about yourself to say, everyone in the world who has access to the internet, a little common sense can go a long way.  Remember when your mom told you not to ever do anything that you wouldn’t want printed on the front page of the New York Times?  (Was that just my mom?)  Well, the same goes for your social networking sites.  If it’s something you don’t want absolutely everyone knowing and having access to forever, then it’s best to not post it at all.  Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know.  This is the new cyber version of stranger danger.  Don’t take candy from strangers, don’t get into their cars, don’t get too close to them, and don’t let them have access to your personal information.  And believe it or not, but there is an awful lot of personal information buried in all that information about how much you love Rock of Love and Real Housewives of New Jersey.  A lot.

Most consumers are aware of the basic steps they need to take to protect themselves from identity theft.  We are a legion of shredders, we are all aware that before we donate our magazines to our doctor’s office or recycle them, we should be very careful to remove and destroy the address labels.  Pre approval credit card offer letters are no long the innocuous annoyances that flood our mailboxes, but are potential breeding grounds for theft.  The news tells us, our neighbors tell us, our instincts tell us.  But it seems as soon as we get our wits about us, the criminals will think of a way to get to us and our private information is some way we haven’t thought of and likely won’t think of until it’s too late.  One of those new ways to garner personal information is on social networking sites such as Facebook.  So of course, now there are some very easy dos and don’ts to follow in order to keep our personal information safe on these sites.  Firstly, make sure you aren’t giving away too much information in your very user name.  First and last name and year of birth, for example is often enough information to get started stealing the rest of it.  Don’t forget that although one piece of information in and of itself might be harmless, the combination of that information with other pieces can make it much easier for a criminal to use that information to steal your identity.  Secondly, make sure to take the steps necessary to take control of the privacy of your information on your social networking site.  Make sure you don’t just accept the bare minimum of Privacy or just the privacy that the site recommends.  The site wants to do its very best to get the traffic up, to send you to their advertiser’s sites, to make sure that your information goes as far as possible, so they will never recommend a level of privacy that is in your best interest.

The world of identity theft is at the same time small and large.  It is small in that all it takes is two people.  A thief and a victim.  From shoulder surfing (an ant where the thief actually looks over the shoulder of the victim to watch them punch in their passwords, or login information) to more sophisticated means of sabotaging a credit card machine or ATM to read information in regards to credit and banking information (that system is called skimming) it seems as though all anyone needs to pull off something like identity fraud is the desire to do it.  But it’s large in that it is happening all over the world and can and is happening everywhere.  The University of Central Missouri knows very well how close identity theft can hit home.  Amanda J. Drake was recently convicted of an identity theft scheme in which she and her husband targeted the students of the university community.  Her husband would take advantage of his job as university police officer at the University of Central Missouri in order to procure for himself and his wife a list of all students who were enrolled in the school.  His wife would then use the information on those lists, such as Social Security numbers, and birthdates, to acquire credit cards in the students’ names for her own personal use.  The wife was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison.  For his part in the scheme, the husband and former university police officer was sentenced to five years probation.  It just goes to show that there are no safe places to leave that kind of information.  In this day and age, information is as valuable as money because information means money and money is what drives most crimes that are not considered to be crimes of passion.  Follow the money trail and you’ll find your victim.

When it comes to stealing someone’s identity, what kind of person is capable of doing something so underhanded?  Generally, this is not a violent crime by any means, and it certainly doesn’t require force or the brutality of many other kinds of crimes.  But some victims of identity theft have compared it to the feeling of being raped.  Now, one would hope that someone wouldn’t have to go through both rape and identity theft, but then again, if they hadn’t gone through both, then how on earth would they know what that feels like?  But in any event, the question on the table is what kind of person would do something like steal someone else’s identity?  Well, if you’re a student in the Pembroke Pines region of Florida, you may want to protect your information from your very own teacher.  Sheyla Diaz, a social studies teacher at Monarch High School was recently convicted of identity theft when she either opened or attempted to open 17 credit card accounts with personal information she stole from her former students.  Almost all of her victims were students at the time that she stole their identities and four of those were students at Monarch High School when Ms. Diaz actually taught there.  When she is sentenced, Ms. Diaz could receive the maximum of five years for her part in stealing the identities of her very own students.  So if you’re looking in dark alleyways and wondering if that clattering you’re hearing might be someone digging through your garbage looking for your personal information, you may be right.  Did you remember to shred that credit card application?  Did you remember to rip the address off that magazine you threw out?  Did you also remember to protect your private and personal information from your social studies teacher?  You better.

So why are we hearing so much about identity theft these days?  Has this been going on al along and we just are only recently hearing about it because the media decided it was a good story to tell.  Possibly.  But it could also be that pesky old Internet.  While technology advances, it brings with it new hopes and amazing new abilities, but it also brings new headaches and things we never ever imagined possible.  Like identity theft.  According to Robert Ellis Smith, identity theft is a “an absolute epidemic.” So what the heck does Robert Ellis Smith know?  Well, as a respected author on all things private and an advocate of maintaining personal privacy and security, he might know more than you think.  He maintains that the profundity of identity theft has definitely picked up in the last five years and that it is something that affects all Americans.  He also maintains that there is very little any American (or anyone else for that matter) can do about it and that it is one of those things that most people aren’t even aware of until it’s too late…their identity has already been stolen.  Those in the know, including law enforcement personnel are referring to identity theft as the one of the quickest growing crimes in all of the United States.  According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse’s special telephone hotline, inquiries about identity theft are the most numerous.  Because the victim’s don’t even know how on earth the criminals made off with their information especially things has private and highly sensitive as social security number, passport information or even credit card information, it is hard to guess how exactly the perpetrator’s are gaining access to that information.   But the director of the Privacy Right’s Clearinghouse says 25% of credit card losses are a direct result of fraud.