Janet CollinsLosing your identity
February 2nd 2009 02:35
Identity theft is one of the most talked about crimes of current times, escalated by online banking and financial transactions. We all hear a lot about it in the news and on current affairs shows and in warnings, but what exactly is it?
The Australian Government explains identity theft as “an individual falsely representing him or herself as either another person or a fictitious person to an organisation for some benefit”.
They call it e-crime and examples are many including hacking into other computer systems, launching a Denial of Service Attack (DOS) and bringing down computer systems; creating and distributing viruses, cyber stalking; and fraudulent financial activity such as phishing.
It can really lead to a problem for you if someone assumes your identity and authorises bank accounts to be opened and closed in your name, enabling money to be transferred out of your accounts.
Suggestions to protect yourself from identity theft include: using secure sites such as ones that start with a “https”; using passwords that are not easy to guess; installing security software; being careful of spam and not responding to emails asking for financial details; removing personal information from your computer; taking care with attachments because they may contain viruses and most of all, watching out for tricks from marketers asking for personal information.
They also suggest checking your bank statements regularly, not carrying personal information with you including pin numbers, making sure your letterbox is secured and tearing up any personal mail or statements before placing it in the rubbish or recycling.
All this information is very useful but what about everyone that can get access to our information just because of the job they do. In a recent conversation with a friend of mine who works in a financial institution, she told me she had access to details of every client of the organisation.
Now, while I know my friend to be completely trustworthy, it would be very naïve to think that everyone that has access to my information can have my same trust, whether it be from the accounts I hold with my insurance company, financial institutions and even local council, simply because I don’t know them.
We can only protect ourselves so far and criminals aren’t necessarily the ones rummaging around in our garbage. Just think of the amount of personal information we give away whenever we open an account with just about any organisation.
Once this information goes into the database, numerous employees of the organisation can, and probably do, have access to it and no organisation can guarantee that every employee with access to it will not pass any of this information on., let alone be involved in some fraudulent activity themselves.
Only recently, the NSW Government was forced to close its jobs website for some days after hackers had managed to retrieve the email addresses of many job applicants and forwarded an unsolicited job advertisement to them.
It certainly demonstrates just how sophisticated hacking has become. Our own personal computers would have nowhere near the level of security of a government system so it highlights just how vulnerable we really are.
Not long ago I received a rather intimate text message for my birthday. By ringing the number on the text message I was greeted in a rather loud American woman’s voice asking me to leave even more of my details.
This information could have been sourced from pretty well anywhere – a beautician’s database, my phone or internet provider who take this as a means of identification, my insurance company, my bank….and the list goes on.
According to the Australian Taxation Office even your tax file number should be kept protected and secure. A message from their website says:
Your tax file number is valuable. Don’t share it with friends and don’t provide it on the internet when applying for work. Keep it secure.
Note: Your TFN should only be used for taxation purposes. It should not be used or disclosed to establish or confirm your identity with other organisations.
Interestingly, I often wonder how secure we can keep this. This information is given to every employer and so is retained in their records. Once this number goes into their hands, it is out of our own control how protected this information is.
While the information such as my email address is used for simple marketing purposes, although annoying does not alarm me all that much. It is for the more devious intentions such as being able to steal my money or take out a loan in my name or even apply for a credit card while pretending to be me that is more frightening.
Fraudulent behaviour existed long before the internet but the internet and our transactions on it have made it far easier for the growing mass of expert hackers to hack into these and get hold of my private information.
Of course we should all be careful and ensure as much as we can that all our important information is kept as private as possible. Beyond that, there is very little we can do……except perhaps cross our fingers.
Information sourced:
Australian Attorney General’s website
Australian Taxation website
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I always insist on doing business (banking, credit card, etc.) via the mails or in person; it's easy to get a lockbox or post office box for mail and give a key to the postman here in our small town. Not only do I get hard copies of transactions, but my info is more secure than online. Sounds like you got "phished" with your text message.
It's becoming more difficult now to do business by mail with some of the big corps.; I'm in the midst of a battle with American Express, who are trying to insist that I do all business with them online or on the phone.
I'm also tracking our government actions for amendments and bills that compromise our rights for privacy..gotta watch those people all the time.
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Hacking is now becoming all too sophisticated.
Good to see you around again.