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Apr 3, 2024

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1 Identity Theft: The Progression and Effects ISSC422

2 In our current society the digital world has greatly progressed in its capabilities and resources, this advancement has led to a large amount of migration of the physical aspects of life to this virtual version. With this lifestyle change came many individuals falling victim to the criminal act of identity theft, with an average of approximately 9 million individuals a year according to the Federal Trade Commission. (Marcum, Higgins, Ricketts, & Wolfe, 2015). Identity theft and identity fraud are commonly used together, identity theft is an attempt to commit identity fraud. Whereas identity fraud is any attempt to use someone else’s information to gain or commit illegal actions under their alias. The overall cause to this extreme amount of criminal activity is due to the number of opportunities created for scamming, such as digital transactions of large commerce, digital mail services for obtaining personal information, inexperience with the new type of system, and the greater toll taken by victims physically and mentally making them easier targets. A large factor for this transition also comes from the world fighting the spread of the Covid disease in 2020 with mass isolation from workspace and public areas. As noted by (Tiwari, Rai, & Sisodia, 2023, para. 1) “an inevitable surge was seen in the usage of digital technologies and social platforms became one of the mediums that allowed individuals to communicate in real-time”. The severity of this criminal activity does vary with different demographics, as well as the effects it causes and measures taken to prevent incidents with the better knowledge gained over its life span. In all this will cover the overall threats presented by identity threats in today’s digital world, some issues encountered, and the efforts taken to counter the situations. Development and usage of the internet quickly developed as it was released to the public, with it also the beginning of a new era of crime. With the growth of this activity, earlier law

3 enforcement had very little means to pursue or prosecute the acts of identity theft, leading it to grow into a larger threat as the internet developed. With the argument made by law enforcement and policy makers describing laws falling behind technology leading to the development of the 1998 legislative act known as Identity Theft Assumption Deterrence Act, making identity theft a federal crime (Finklea, 2010). Over the years other legislative laws have been introduced to further strengthen federal law on identity theft. Other acts are the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act and the Identity Theft and Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2008, further improving the prosecution of identity theft in different forms while giving back to those affected by the crime. Alongside the laws passed, a task force was implemented to uphold the laws in place, known as The Presidents Identity Theft Task Force, established in 2006 to strategically plan to combat the growing threat. (Finklea, 2010). Many recommendations and rules began to be put into place and recommended by the task force and policy makers to further increase security against identity theft. This came to limiting the amount SSN numbers would be requested for actions and limiting how much information would be given digitally to avoid the chance of loss of such sensitive information. The threat of theft saw growth due to many factors and different avenues, one of those being the steady growth of digital commerce, or online shopping. Many consumers began to offer online shopping to customers requiring them to not even leave the comfort of their home to buy their goods, having them shipped to them. However, “Consumers who do business with companies online are vulnerable in three general ways: (1) the data on their computer may be compromised, (2) the data transfer to an online business may be compromised, and (3) the data stored by the business may be compromised.” (Milne, 2003, para. 9). Online shopping brought

4 convenience of home shopping, with the risk of having to digitally input much of an individual’s personal information for companies to verify and deliver to the customer. This gives a grand opportunity for thieves to access the system of given companies and steal this information, giving them access to many credit cards and payment options to steal. Even occasionally seeing employees dedicated to the company take personal information for personal gain and spending. As well as running the risk of thieves stealing information, companies would also sell customer information to third party companies for even more monetary gain. These companies being able to abuse the information for advertisements and possible scam or phishing attempts through emails. In surveys conducted by a variety of groups with participants of different demographics lead to show the difference on how identity security was handled. Such as between university students and those not in school conducting surveys would show overall the non-students also older demographic tend to ensure to use anonymous information and websites visited were secured, although overall 50% were still likely to ensue forms were secured before filling them out. (Milne, 2004). A much more current event that led to an extreme transition to more digital reliance was the Covid pandemic in 2020. With the virus causing so much chaos with restrictions to travel, educational and workplaces being lockdown, face-to-face restrictions in place, and people being restricted to the four walls of their home, came the digital channels to bridge the gaps in communications. (Tiwari, et al. 2023). To keep the world from declining communities implemented digital communications to conduct day to day work and even education, although this was an effective means to work around Covid restrictions it saw an immense increase in cybercrime. The use of social media to share details became a huge figure, where cybercrime

5 was already prominent in these areas this gave a much larger pool of targets for identity thieves. Several fake accounts and organizations, especially with the increase in children accessing the internet and social media for school lacking in knowledge became much easier prey for identity crime. As well as creating a dependency on virtual interaction, with reports showing an overall 50% increase in time spent on social media or through digital communication. (Tiwari, et al. 2023). Also, fear to avoid being exposed to the virus leads to much more digital transfer of information and a huge increase in digital consumers resulting in increased difficulty to pursue cybercrime. The outcome of this outbreak caused a gap in cybersecurity and opening many more avenues for identity crimes to be committed without being arrested. Additionally, many other avenues are available for identity thieves to take advantage of gaining access to an individual’s information, in which is used to obtain goods or commit crimes in another’s name. Methods used to obtain information vary in many ways, such as dumpster diving, phishing, hacking, scams, mail raiding, and many more all with the goal of obtaining certain bits of information. Many forms of government paperwork and IDs, as well as medical forms are commonly targeted to gain information to steal an individual’s identity. Many forms are as follows, “The identity thief obtains vital information such as identity numbers (social security numbers in the United States), medical aid numbers, addresses, birth and death certificates, passport numbers, financial account numbers such as credit card numbers, passwords, telephone numbers and biometric data (like fingerprints).” (Cassim, 2015. Pg. 73). This information is commonly used to gain access to bank accounts, open debit or credit cards, purchase products in the individuals name building debt, as well as crimes to frame or immigration reasons. Another method used is phishing, a method using emails to send fake, but

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