A special credit card offer for college students is actually the latest identity theft scam, Local 2 reported Tuesday.
Dennis Mulvey was suspicious from the beginning.
“I went, ‘Uh oh,’ when they said they were giving away free Montgomery College credit cards. I knew the college did no such thing,” he said.
He was one of at least three students at Montgomery College who were targeted for identity theft.
Mulvey received a call at home nearly three weeks ago.
The woman on the line offered him a $200 gift certificate along with the college credit card.
Mulvey knew the college did not offer credit cards, so he played along.
“Then she said, ‘Can I have your mother’s maiden name?’ Then I gave her a false one. I gave her my cat’s name,” he said.
The caller was persistent, asking for bank account and Social Security numbers.
“I said, ‘Not a chance.’ And she hung up,” Mulvey said.
He reported it to the school right away.
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Claire Sellick approached a woman in London’s tony theater district with a clipboard and a chance to win tickets to an upcoming show. All the woman had to do was answer a three-minute survey on locals’ theater-going habits. Or so she thought.
The first question was easy. “What’s your name?” Next came questions about her attitude towards the theater, with more personal inquiries interjected now and then. For instance, the survey company needed the woman’s date of birth (to prove she was legally able to win the seats) and her mother’s maiden name (for later verification) and her address, of course, to mail the tickets if she won the drawing. What about a phone number? Her pet’s name? The name of the first school she attended?
At some point, the woman began connecting the dots. “I work for a bank and this information could be used to open a bank account.”
“Yes,” Sellick responded.
The event director for the Infosecurity Europe trade show recalled with incredulity what happened next. “She then proceeded to give me all her details!”
That encounter is recounted in the conference’s annual pulse-taking of people’s susceptibility to social engineering. The results typically are released a few weeks before Infosecurity Europe kicks off in London to drum up publicity and to track the public’s propensity to easily divulge sensitive data. Last year, people at a transit station gladly gave up their passwords for a chocolate Easter egg. This year, they provided all the ingredients for their identities to be stolen for a chance to see a show.
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More than 70% of people would reveal their computer password in exchange for a bar of chocolate, a survey has found.
It also showed that 34% of respondents volunteered their password when asked without even needing to be bribed.
A second survey found that 79% of people unwittingly gave away information that could be used to steal their identity when questioned.
Security firms predict that the lax security practices will fuel a British boom in online identity theft.
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In San Francisco, 67-year-old Warren Lambert has a new daily ritual — standing guard over his bank accounts and credit rating. Last month Lambert learned he was among 145,000 Americans whose personal information — identities — had been stolen from ChoicePoint.
“[It was] very intimate information about me, actually more information about me than my own children have,” says Lambert.
It was a massive leak from a company whose specialty is collecting and saving 19 billion records.
“This is an industry that holds a tremendous amount of information — a very rich dossier on just about every American adult,” says Beth Givens with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
But it is also an industry without much government oversight. California is the only state requiring companies to warn customers if their personal information has been compromised.
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“Ovid” recounts how he tracked down identity thieves who were using his credit cards:
Being a bit of a hypocrite, I sometimes whine about privacy in my blog. I do, however, try to be careful about not letting anyone get information about me they shouldn’t and I rarely, if ever, use a credit card online. This is why I was surprised to find out one morning that identity thieves had racked up thousands of dollars one two of my credit cards. By early afternoon, I caught them and the police arrested them.
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Never before with Instant Messaging (IM) has a more vital warning been needed for current and potential IM buddies who chat online.
John Sakoda of IMlogic CTO and Vice President of Products stated that,
“IM viruses and worms are growing exponentially….Virus writers are now shifting the focus of their attack to instant messaging, which is seen as a largely unprotected channel into the enterprise.”
Because Instant Messaging operates on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, it spawns an irresistible temptation for malicious computer hackers. P2P networks share files and operate on industry standard codec (encyrption codes) and industry standard protocols, which are publicly open and interpretable. Anti virus software does not incorporate protection for Instant Messaging services.
Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, these hacker mercenaries view Instant Messaging clients as their personal “Cash Cow” because of the ease by which they can access your computer via the publicly open and interpretable standards, unleash a Trojan horse, virus, or worm, as well as gather your personal and confidential information, and sell it to other depraved reprobates.
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Banking industry’s database in Middle East and particularly in the Gulf region is largely vulnerable to cyber crimes. Many banks have taken this issue seriously and are vying for information security as a safety measure for its customers.
“Banking industry in the Middle East is reeling under heavy pressure, facing fresh challenges to keep the confidential large database information secured, said Kevin Isaac, regional director, Symantec Middle East and Africa.
Isaac said: “The increase in virus attacks such as ‘phishing’ and attacks through other web sites have affected the banking industry in a big way. The industry needs to boost the awareness and patch management among their peer groups.
According to Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), between July 1 and December 31, 2004, Symantec detected 10,310 new phishing attacks; an average of nearly 400 new attacks per week. During this period the number of phishing attempts being blocked by Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam antifraud filters rose from 9 million phishing attempts per week in early July to 33 million messages per week by the end of December. Over the last six months of 2004, Symantec reported a 77 per cent growth in spam for companies whose systems were monitored for spam.”
The report shows that the Asia Pacific and Japan region is now the leading source of Internet threats. In the last report, issued in September 2004, the Middle East was the global leader in this category. The number of threats per capita in the Middle East increased by 4 per cent as opposed to the past report, which saw an increase of 63 per cent. “The Middle East is no longer the leading region as a source of threats; we still have work to do around awareness and education to ensure that we start to see a decreasing number of threats appearing from the Middle East, added Isaac.
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Aunty Spam points out the inception of Identity Theft Insurance.
Identity theft insurance? It’s obviously an idea whose time has come. In fact some would say that identity theft insurance is an idea whose time is long overdue. Just ask anyone whose personal data has recently been compromised by either the hacking of ChoicePoint’s data or the Scamming of Lexis Nexis’ data. No doubt the people whose personal data was compromised in those incidents wish that they had identity theft insurance. In fact the ChoicePoint hacking has lead to a lawsuit against ChoicePoint by some of those whose identities were put at risk.
Well, Allstate Insurance is now offering identity theft insurance in seven states. For about $30.00 dollars a year, the insured gets access to professional “identity restoration assistance”, and up to $25,000 in reimbursement for expenses incurred while restoring their identity. Such expenses could include things such as attorneys fees, credit report fees, and even lost wages.
In an attempt to combat the growing phenomenon of identity theft, a group of regulators at the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) approved a ruling that would force US banks to warn their customers if they believe they may have had their details compromised.
The proposed FDIC rule would only require banks to disclose breaches in which they believe customers’ private information was misused, rather than report every breach.
Jim Stickley, chief technology officer at LA firm, TraceSecurity says that, if approved, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC ruling, “could cause a significant increase in identity theft disclosures.” He said: “most large-scale identity thefts go unreported, either because the bank wants to avoid tarnishing their reputation or because they are simply unaware of the breaches”.
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The burglars may be common thieves or specialists in identity theft. Or, in the most harrowing but plausible of scenarios, they could be terrorists.
None of these prospects can be ruled out as investigators probe a bizarre break-in last week at a Department of Motor Vehicles office in the suburb of North Las Vegas that is being treated as a possible homeland security threat.
Burglars rammed a vehicle through a back wall at the DMV early on March 7 and drove off with 1,700 blank Nevada licenses, the equipment needed to make licenses, and a computer hard drive that contained the Social Security numbers and other personal information of more than 8,000 people who had obtained licenses there since November.
”Think of the ripple effect this could have,” said Tim Mohr, director of investigations for BDO Seidman LLC, an accounting firm based in New York. ”Say it’s a terrorist cell that ends up with this information. They can use it to rent cars or trucks. They don’t run a driver’s license when you rent a vehicle, they just ask to see it. The ripple effect is that it doesn’t just affect Nevadans.”
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