While it can be a giant pain in the you know what to have your credit card stolen, one of the worst things that can happen in terms of identity theft is to have your Social Security number stolen.  There have been a rash of thefts of Social Security numbers in the Orlando area and one young girl has had the misfortune of having her number used by three different individuals for the purpose of working illegally in our country.  Her number is being used to secure a job as a dishwasher, a paver-installer and a construction worker and she hasn’t even graduated from high school yet.  Because a social security number is required in obtaining a job or a financial account or credit, the thieves could also open lines of credit using her number and ruin her credit history before she’s even old enough to start building it.  The thieves can also claim fraudulent worker’s compensation using her information.  According to local law enforcement, as law agencies are cracking down on companies that hire illegal workers, they are discovering a frighteningly high number of cases of false document sales.  They think the number of illegal workers using this girl’s social security number might be in the hundreds.  Investigators were first put onto the case when they realized over a hundred people were using the very same Social Security number as a criminal they were tracing in an unrelated incident.  They have already convicted over 25 illegal workers for using that stolen number.  The number of defendants is expected to rise by more than 10 in the coming months.  They have no idea at this time who stole the number, or who the ringleader is in this black market false documents ring. According to the Federal Trade Commission, in 2009, over 20,000 complaints of identity theft were claimed in the state of Florida alone.

It seems that criminals keep getting younger and younger.  It used to be that a child under the age of 18 wouldn’t even be considered as a fully functioning adult and therefore not considered to be capable of such things has identity theft.  But then again, children are making a name for themselves, each generation entering the criminal databases at an earlier and earlier age.  Kids are murdering each other, for heaven’s sake, so why would it be surprising that would steal identities as well.  In Louisville, KY, a high-schooler was pulled from her classes and escorted by police officers to the Jeffersontown Police station to answer questions about her alleged involvement with a rash of identity thefts.  Police had surveillance video that depicted the girl and her accomplices of using stolen credit cards to make thousands of dollars worth of purchases in stores like Wal-mart and the Limited. She admitted to breaking into cars and stealing credit cards and then going on a shopping spree only to then ditch the cards once she had used them.  She is being accused of doing this countless times and in many jurisdictions around Jeffersontown.  What is happening to our youth?  Why do they have such a sense of entitlement?  Why do they feel as though they don’t have to work for what they have?  Why is the easy way out always the way out for this generation of thieves and liars?  This young girl has been accused of unlawfully accessing a computer, tampering with evidence, and credit card fraud.  She has damaged her image for the rest of her life and for what?  A thousand dollars worth of merchandise from Wal-mart.  Really?  What goods lie beyond the doors of Wal-Mart that are so enticing, a girl would throw away her entire future just for the chance to steal them?  Tube socks?  Orange Juice?  Cheap, itchy clothes?  What?

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.

Whenever anyone goes to the DMV, they see signs reminding everyone to sign the back of their license so that they can be an organ donor. The system as it stands in the United States is in desperate straits and there are now more and more commercials on television showing the stories of people whose lives have been saved by organ donation. So for those great individuals who make this commitment in the state of Florida, you should get a pat on the back. You should also get Lifelock to make sure that no one is committing identity theft with your personal information.

It was reported today that there was a data breach at the Organ and Tissue Donor Registry, which is housed by The Agency for Health Care Administrations. It appears that up to 55,000 people might have had their private information, such as names, addresses, social security numbers, and drivers license numbers, stolen. There are still only limited details at this point, although it is clear that the state is taking the breach seriously.

Those who were affected by the breach should receive a letter in the mail in the next few days. The Agency for Health Care Administrations wants to make clear that it is only contacting people by mail and not phone or email. If anyone gets asked for their social security number of other private information over the phone or in an email, they should be weary of responding since this might be a phishing attempt to further extend identity theft. In the letter that was sent out to people, it explains that the breach took place on June 20 and was discovered the next day and corrected. There is no explanation given for how the issue was so quickly resolved or solutions to prevent this type of breach from taking place in the future.

At this point, according to a statement by AHCA Secretary Holly Benson, there is no indication that any of the information was illegally obtained. At the same time though, since the investigation is still ongoing and the story developing, people are advised to keep an eye on their credit reports and look out for any suspicious activity. One way to ensure that you are protected is to invest in an ID theft subscription service, such as Lifelock. The company, famous for its founder who lists his social security number of a drunk and drives it around downtown New York because he is confident in the protection his company gives, monitors all three credit bureaus. It keeps tabs and is notified whenever a new credit card or loan application is filed. It then contacts its customer to make sure this is a valid application. It then can stop or allow the file to continue. Since many victims of identity theft are subjected to long periods of trying to cleanup their credit records after the fact, taking a proactive step before any illegal activities occur is advised.

Despite its beautiful campus and ivy covered buildings, Stanford is not immune to the problems of educational institutions in the 21st century. It was reported yesterday that the university recently was the victim of a series of thefts, one of which involved a laptop computer. Although the break-in occurred a few weeks ago, it was only noted today that the laptop contained personal data which could allow someone to perpetrate identity theft among any of the individuals listed in the database. Unfortunately, this breach not only hits a well respected institution in the United States, but it also has the potential to affect upwards of 60,000 people.

While this 60,000 people does not actually included any students, the university has not addressed whether or not research assistance or any student who has served as an aid to a professor happens to fall under this category. As it stands at the moment, the 60,000 is all former or current employees, across all departments and divisions, and without any end date for the window of information contained on the laptop. The laptop contained “confidential personal material” although there is no indication if this includes social security numbers, addresses, bank routing numbers, or anything along those lines.

While more details are continuing in the investigation, Stanford has assured its faculty and staff that it takes serious all of its required security measures. Although there is no word yet on how the data on the laptop is protected, a press released by the university to the media said that it is secure and that it will be difficult for anyone to access. Also in the release is the recognition that the individual or individuals who are responsible for the crime might not even know the material is on the laptop and that everyone should keep an eye on their credit report all the same.

Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer Randy Livingston wrote a letter that was sent out to all the affected parties. In the letter he laid out that Stanford has many rules in place that are supposed to prevent private data from being stored on computer systems that are mobile. He said that in light of this most recent incident, these efforts will be strengthened to prevent any future problems from taking place.

Unlike Harvard, which experienced its own data breach earlier in the year (link), Stanford has not spelled out whether or not it will set up any sort of subscription services for the potentially 60,000 affected people. These subscription services involved ID theft companies, such as Lifelock, that monitor the three major credit bureaus. Equifax, Trans Union, and Experian are all notified and Lifelock contacts its customers whenever a new credit card or loan application is filed. By contacting the consumer at this early phase, it significantly limits the likelihood that any identity theft will take place under the affected person’s account. While the letter to the affected employees does not contain any reference to these services, experts in the field of identity theft solutions recognize their benefit, whereas stopping the problem before it starts is much easier than the hassle of having to go through and deal with a large number of fraudulent charges.