Identity Theft On The Internet

Throughout history people have assumed the identity of others for criminal purposes.

Long ago, before much of the populace could read and write, there were probably not too many documents needed to 'prove' ones identity.

If a villain wanted to masquerade as someone else, and enjoy their riches, it may not have taken much more than keeping the victim out of the way. One way to keep the victim out of the way was of course, to murder them.

Nearer to the present day came an increase in paper documentation and more pieces of ID that, in the wrong hands, can be used to fraudulently impersonate someone.

Pickpocketing, burglary and searching through trash are all ways that identity thieves could, and still can, obtain the personal information they need.

The invention of the telephone gave the crooks another weapon in their arsenal. They could simply call victims and milk them for information without them even realizing what was going on.

With the advent of the information age came cyber crime and along with a large section of the population, ID thieves went online. They soon devised ways to illegally gain access to a mountain of personal information and made criminal use of it - identity theft on the internet was born.

Does the danger of ID theft mean that it is unsafe to use the internet for online banking, shopping, paying bills etc? There is a risk, but there is a risk in everything that we do.

If we walk down the street, there is a risk of being assaulted or mugged. If we drive there is a risk of an accident. If we eat, there is a risk of food poisoning or choking. Life involves risk. What we do is become aware of the risks, take precautions and apply common sense to reduce any danger.

It's the same with the risk of identity theft on the internet. As long as we are aware of the danger and take precaution against it, we can enjoy all the advantages of life online.

Let's learn some of the ways online identity theft happens and how we can guard against it.

One of the ways that thieves obtain the personal information they need in order to commit identity theft is by launching phishing attacks.

They do this by sending out thousands upon thousands of phoney emails designed to persuade victims to reveal such information.

You of course, know that you should never disclose things like your Social Security number, user-names and account numbers and other sensitive information.

But the ID thieves can be very clever and the phishing emails they send are often well designed and cunningly convincing.

Find out how you can spot a fraudulent email and how to protect yourself from a phishing email attack.

This criminal practice could be described as a close relation to phishing. Whereas phishing relies upon you clicking a link in a fraudulent email that takes you to a bogus website, pharming does the same, only without the email.

Online identity theft. Be very careful about what you download to your computer and any files that you share.

Put simply, criminals exploit a vulnerability in the Domain Name System to misdirect traffic for a genuine website to a bogus site, which is usually a very good copy.

Even if you enter the correct URL in the address bar, you are taken to the fake copy of the site. The victim enters their personal information which gets used by the thieves to commit identity theft on the internet.

The criminals can do this in two ways. They can attack an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and misdirect the internet traffic from there. Major ISP's will have precautions in place to prevent pharming attacks.

The easier way for the criminals is to install malicious programs (malware) on your computer.

The programs are often hidden inside seemingly innocent downloads or shared files. Once they are residing in your computer these programs can lie in wait until you visit your online bank or a shopping site etc., then redirect you to a copy where they can grab your pin numbers, credit card information and other data that you enter.

So what can you do to protect against pharming?

Make sure that you have a firewall and anti-virus protection and keep it up to date. Also ensure that your operating system (example Windows) is kept up to date with the latest security patches.

When entering sensitive information, always ensure that the URL of the page requesting the information stats with https:// and not http://, the 's' stands for secure.

Additionally there should be a little image of a locked padlock or a key at the bottom of your browser, this indicates an encrypted connection. If the padlock is unlocked or the key is broken, do not enter your information and close the browser window.

Check the certificate. Right click anywhere on the page and select properties or view page info. Then click certificates or security.

If the certificate is out of date, does not match the site owner or is in any way suspicious, then do not take the risk. A page that does not require you to enter sensitive personal information, such as this page, will start with http:// and will not require a certificate.

Be very careful about what you download to your computer and any files that you share.

Use a reputable Internet Service Provider. (ISP) The main ISP's will do all that is possible to combat pharming by identity thieves and other online criminals.

Whichever internet browser it is that you use, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox etc., you will find that new versions and updates become available pretty frequently.

Sometimes updating your browser to the new version results in snazzy new features, other times there does not seem to be any visible difference at all, just a new version number. Ever wonder why that is?

The update is often for online security reasons.

Thieves may discover a flaw or loophole in the browser that they can exploit to steal your private data or highjack your computer. The browser's vendors then have to develop patches, or fixes for these loopholes, hence the new browser version.

The fix will not protect you, of course, unless you update to the new version. Time does not stand still online however, thieves are always on the lookout for more vulnerabilities and ways to exploit them. So then the browser needs yet another update to protect against identity theft on the internet. And so it goes on.

The only way to be as protected as possible when using a browser is to upgrade each time a new version becomes available. Yes, it can sometimes be a little inconvenient and may seem pointless when there is no visible difference to the browser, but to protect against online ID theft, staying updated is more than important, it is essential.

Your browser may offer 'private browsing' as an option. Using this option means that the browser will not store any information collected for that surfing session, your tracks are hidden. This does mean that you will have to log in to sites each time that you visit using private browsing, auto-fill will not work.

It is all too easy for an unprotected home computer to become infected with malware, viruses, spyware, worms, trojans etc.

You need to ensure that you have good antivirus software, antispyware and a good firewall and ensure they are kept up to date. Doing so will help to keep malicious programs out of your computer and thereby stop identity thieves stealing your personal data.

Keep your operating system updated at all times.

You should also have a robust firewall and make sure that it is active at all times . Going online without a firewall would place you at risk of being infected.

Never download files from the Internet unless you completely trust the source of those files. Do not open email attachments from people or companies that you do not know and trust.

Stay safe. Enjoy life online, but take all the necessary precautions and use common sense to prevent becoming a victim of identity theft on the internet.

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