According to Travelers, the insurance company, the three leading causes of identity theft are burglary and theft of wallets, purses, laptop computers, etc.; on-line data breaches; and mail fraud. There are limits on how people can protect themselves from such crimes, although the use of hard drive encryption like AlertBoot would effectively prevent further crimes originating from the theft of a computer.
Travelers compiled data from 2008, and according to their research on instances where people knew how their personal information had been compromised, 78% of was due to burglary (IDs, credit cards, and other data--I assume--in wallets, purses, computers) 14% on-line breaches 5% mail fraud, like the use of change of address forms 3% lost credit cards and other miscellanea (as opposed to actively stolen, I take it) Of course, I imagine that if the 78% figure was further broken down to wallets, purses, computers, and what not, the numbers may not look so impressive when compared to the 14% for on-line breaches. (On the other hand, I can understand why they'd be consolidated this way. How does one know whether identity fraud was a result of a stolen wallet or computer if both of them were taken together? The intersection between a stolen computer and change of address forms is probably negligible, though.) Once personal information is compromised, criminals use them to, "...open new credit card accounts or use the existing credit cards to make charges. Twenty percent of identity thieves will withdraw money from existing checking, savings and online accounts and 16 percent open utility accounts in the victim’s name."
Travelers compiled data from 2008, and according to their research on instances where people knew how their personal information had been compromised,
Of course, I imagine that if the 78% figure was further broken down to wallets, purses, computers, and what not, the numbers may not look so impressive when compared to the 14% for on-line breaches.
(On the other hand, I can understand why they'd be consolidated this way. How does one know whether identity fraud was a result of a stolen wallet or computer if both of them were taken together? The intersection between a stolen computer and change of address forms is probably negligible, though.)
Once personal information is compromised, criminals use them to,
"...open new credit card accounts or use the existing credit cards to make charges. Twenty percent of identity thieves will withdraw money from existing checking, savings and online accounts and 16 percent open utility accounts in the victim’s name."
Travelers has some recommendations on how to stop becoming a victim (as well as a plug for their own services in case you do become one...which is perfectly valid. I've heard that, on average, it may take a little over a month to correct the ugly fallout from ID fraud). However, the best solution is not to become a victim to start with. Travelers recommends being proactive and protecting SSNs and other financial information, such as shredding any documents that show these (bank statements, for example). However, seeing how stolen purses, wallets, and computers account for well over half of the instances of ID theft, I'd have to wonder how effective the above approach would be (wouldn't non-shredded documents fall into the 3% miscellanea?) But, how do you prevent the theft of purses and wallets, though? A chain running to your back pocket? Those went out of fashion some time ago. There are limitations on how proactive you can be. Fortunately, that's not the case for computers and laptops. Installing encryption software to protect the computer hard drives' will prevent any unauthorized access. Just make sure to follow correct security practices, like not writing the password down and sticking it to the bottom of the laptop.
Travelers has some recommendations on how to stop becoming a victim (as well as a plug for their own services in case you do become one...which is perfectly valid. I've heard that, on average, it may take a little over a month to correct the ugly fallout from ID fraud).
However, the best solution is not to become a victim to start with. Travelers recommends being proactive and protecting SSNs and other financial information, such as shredding any documents that show these (bank statements, for example).
However, seeing how stolen purses, wallets, and computers account for well over half of the instances of ID theft, I'd have to wonder how effective the above approach would be (wouldn't non-shredded documents fall into the 3% miscellanea?)
But, how do you prevent the theft of purses and wallets, though? A chain running to your back pocket? Those went out of fashion some time ago. There are limitations on how proactive you can be.
Fortunately, that's not the case for computers and laptops. Installing encryption software to protect the computer hard drives' will prevent any unauthorized access. Just make sure to follow correct security practices, like not writing the password down and sticking it to the bottom of the laptop.
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