What can they really do with your identity?

Bob is on the run. He murdered a clerk at an all-night convenience store and cleaned out the cash register. He needs to hide, and hide fast.

He shaves off his mustache, dyes his hair a different color, pops in colored contact lenses, and applies some phony tattoos; but that's not enough. He needs a new name and the papers to go with it. He turns to his friend Bill who puts him in touch with Mary.

Mary is a hacker. Yesterday she sent out a few thousand emails from a mailing list she bought on the Internet. Half of the letters were for a phony Microsoft patch download, the other half were "I'm Amy and here's my photo" letters. As of this morning, 10% of those letters were opened and 5% of the recipients clicked on the patch or the "Amy" photo.

If you were one of the readers who clicked, you now have a Trojan horse on your computer and it opened a passage through your computer's firewall. Now Mary gets to work.

The Trojan has informed Amy that she has free entry into your computer. She logs into your computer from wherever she is located (it could be next door, it could be on the other side of the planet). In the middle of her monitor, a window appears. The window is your desktop, exactly as you see it, only smaller.

Whatever you have on that computer now belongs to Mary, and that includes ALL your Internet activity because everything you do out here in cyberspace is copied to your hard drive.

Did you do any online banking? Mary now has a copy of your username; besides that, she can apply a program to decode your password.

Did you make any online purchases? She now has your credit card information.
Is your credit lousy? That doesn't matter to Mary, and it certainly doesn't matter to the murderer, Bob. She knows you're a real person, she has your full name, she knows where you live, and that's enough for her to get your Social Security Number off the Internet and maybe even your Driver's License number. If there is anything at all on your computer about where you were born, she has that too which means she can send off for a copy of your Birth Certificate.

Bingo.

Phony identification documents are created for Bob using your Social Security Number and whatever else Mary was able to obtain - actually, your Social was enough. Bob, thief and murderer of convenience store clerks, is now walking around saying he is you. And, he is free to continue his crime spree posing as you.

The above is only one scenario. Mary can get into your computer simply by attaching viruses like Trojan horses and spyware to web sites, ad banners, forms, and popups.

All my Internet activity is on my hard drive? Where?

Everything you do on the Internet is recorded on your hard drive for future reference. Your browser stores your history, cookies, and your password management on your hard drive. Your activity is hidden in Temporary Downloads and Download files, cookies, cache files, Temp files, and files that don't even show in your Directory.

Can you go around every day and clean out these files yourself? No, not really. For one thing, you'd have to run through your entire Directory every few minutes. On top of that, you can easily delete a file that is vital to the functioning of your computer. This is strictly a job for your anti-virus program, your anti-spyware program, and your internet tracks eraser, and these programs must be actively run on a regular basis. That means that besides your regular scheduled maintenance, you need to make an extra run every now and then, especially after a heavy email or surfing session.

Where does my information go?

Mary can find out all she needs to know about you in just a few minutes, and she can turn around and sell that information more than a thousand times over the next 48 hours.
Mary's been at this for a while, so she has her contacts lined up and waiting. Your credit card information is sold to a criminal info-merchant in Malaysia, one in Nigeria, and one in Kiev. The credit card information is then sold to thieves who order merchandise over the Internet.

Your Driver's License and Social Security information go to phony ID makers in the US and Canada, and abroad to phony ID makers who create Passports, Social Security cards, and Driver's Licenses for foreign drug dealers and money launderers.

Your bad credit doesn't matter.

Even if you have no credit, criminals will establish credit for you. They will purchase pre-paid credit cards in your name and build them up, increasing the credit line and then apply for credit elsewhere. They forge documents showing they own property (belonging to someone else) and then obtain loans against that property in your name. They get jobs in your name, rent apartments, buy furniture, and lease cars, all in your name. Then they disappear over the hill and leave you with all the liability.

Once I prove it wasn't me who did everything, I'm in the clear. Right?

It's not as simple as that - not by a long shot. You have to prove your innocence for each and every event.

The above examples are not far-fetched. They are a daily occurance in this country. At it's current pace identity theft claims 27,000 victims per day in the United States alone.

Identity Theft may be a crime but unfortunately apathy is not. Apathy is the bigget ally an identity thief has. Educated consumers hear the stories, but do little to change their actions to protect themselves against this pandemic. Turn apathy into action and protect what you cannot prevent.