Identity Theft: Information Security Breach

Hackers can gain access to the computer records of banks, credit card companies, hospitals, merchants, universities, government agencies, and other organizations. Though such breaches occur much more rarely than phishing, even one instance can give the hacker access to millions of people’s personal data, including Social Security numbers, birth certificates, driver’s license numbers, health records, employment records, and financial information. The FBI reports that, since

This case study, written in 2009 is not the only case where a major data breach has occurred within organizations. In the late 2011 Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) was breached impacting up to 77 million user’s accounts including data on names, address and possibly credit card details. In late 2013 Target had a cyber-attack that compromised a large quantity of its data and had 110 million accounts compromised. Finally in September 2014 Apple had their iCloud server breached by hacking that compromised all the users of the online server. These occurrences still have some unanswered questions and several experts have yet to decipher the actual reason as to why the security breach occurred.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that requires covered entities to maintain reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for protecting electronic patient health information (e-PHI) (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules). Entities must: 1) ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all e-PHI they create, receive, maintain, or transmit; 2) identity and protect against reasonable anticipated threats to the security or integrity of the information; 3) protect against reasonable anticipated , impermissible users or disclosures; and 4) ensure compliance in the workplace. Entities must review and modify security measures to continue protecting e-PHI in a changing environment. They are required to run risk assessments as part of security measures, implement security measures that reduce risks and vulnerabilities to a reasonable and appropriate level, and designate a security officer responsible for developing and implementing its security policies and procedures.

Imagine, that you come back from a hard day’s work. You put on your favorite grey sweats with a cozy sweater. Soon after, you get a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Then you lean back on the sofa, turn on the television and change the channel to the local news. Breaking news with bright red letters are plastered across the screen. The news anchor goes on explaining that an employee at the local hospital accidentally donated data of patients. This means that patient’s social security numbers, addresses, medical records, and other personal information, were given away without patients’ permission or consent. At that moment you realize that all your personal information is out there for everyone to see and use; and there is nothing you can do about it. The collection of personal information is called data mining, and is collected through large online databases. The real question is that data mining violating our privacy and rights? Why are companies still collecting our personal information without our consent and how can we protect ourselves from breaches? Data mining should be limited in the United States and needs to undergo more appropriate privacy and security policies to protect citizens privacy.

There is a thief that lurks around us everyday; this thief can attack in brad day light or in the darkest hour, and just about anywhere you may find yourself. This thief has the power to act in your name, make unlimited purchases, open up credit accounts and ruin your good name and credit all in the matter of seconds; if you are vulnerable enough, you might become his next victim. In many cases all he needs is your name and a social security number, and he has enough information to make you his next victim; if you don’t believe me then ask the millions of Americans that became victim’s, or just ask me. The thief that I am talking about is identity theft. Identity theft is a

How far is too far when it comes to privacy? In a rapidly developing digital age, the boundaries are constantly expanding as new technology emerges. Data mining is not going away, so the debate on privacy becomes increasingly relevant. The line between what is ethical and unethical quickly become blurred, and certain entities are bound to take advantage of that gray area. Corporations claim they are collecting private data for marketing research to serve more relevant advertising and increase profits. Despite the marketing benefits of digital data collection, it is unethical for corporations to collect private digital data without taking proper measures to protect privacy.

In the past 12 months, there have been nearly 432 million accounts hacked belonging to many websites and applications. Many of this information stolen was sensitive, personal data such as credit card information, phone numbers, passwords, and even addresses.

According to the FTC, Identity theft topped the Federal Trade Commission’s national ranking of consumer complaints for the 15th consecutive year. There are eight different types of identity theft: Financial Identity Theft, Driver’s License ID Theft, Criminal ID Theft, Social Security ID Theft, Medical ID Theft, Insurance ID Theft, Child ID Theft, and Synthetic ID Theft. As I read though the list of potential identity theft issues, it honestly made me want to crawl under a rock, it is very unsettling that there are so many ways in which someone can become you. And the fact that many times we never know that a breach of our private data has occurred is equally unsettling.

Have you ever received a credit card bill at the end of the month with a ridiculous amount of money needed to be paid that you never spent? This is because of identity theft. The FTC estimates that each year, over 9 million people are affected by identity theft. According to Sally Driscoll, this is because almost anyone with a computer and a slight bit of computer knowledge can pull off identity theft. Experts also claim that identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the world. Identity theft is a global problem that cannot be stopped without effective measures. The problem is, effective measures are very hard to come by when dealing with identity theft because almost any security protocol can be by-passed.

Back in 2011, there was a major online attack that involved the Sony PlayStation online gaming service, PS Network and the compromise of 77 million users’ personal information. This was one of the largest corporation attacks within the last 10 years involving so many accounts. The attack took place between April 17th and 19th when an illegal and unauthorized person gained access to the personal account server and stole the information. What made this attack so much more important than just the amount was what was stolen during the attack. It did not just usernames and gamer tags, but the actual account owner’s name, address, email, birthday, password, login and security questions. With this information, the attacker was able to gain access

Identity theft is on the rise in the United States and Globally. The Federal Trade Commission advised that there are about nine million cases of identity theft. People who had their identity stolen often feel like they were violated. Any individual can have their identity compromised in numerous ways. Different institutions store personal information. There are several organizations that have social security numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card numbers. Colleges and Universities have people personal information stored in their databases that could be hacked. There are several companies that offer options to people to protect their identity. Most credit card companies offer the option of identity

Identity theft is the fastest growing fraud crime in America (Finklea, 2009). Gaining knowledge in preventing theft will better the economy and lower the crime rates in America. There are reported 9.9 million victims of identity theft and this number is increasing rapidly as the years go on. It has been reported that an estimate of fifty billion dollars has been charged to our consumers every year due to identity theft (Finklea, 2009).

With the increased and widespread use of technologies, interest in data mining has increased rapidly. Companies are now utilized data mining techniques to exam their database looking for trends, relationships, and outcomes to enhance their overall operations and discover new patterns that may allow them to better serve their customers. Data mining provides numerous benefits to businesses, government, society as well as individual persons. However, like many technologies, there are negative things that caused by data mining such as invasion of privacy right. This paper tries to explore the advantages as well as the disadvantages of data mining. In addition, the ethical and global issues regarding the use of data mining

Over 77 million customers have been involved in the PlayStation Network hack in 2014 and its one of the largest attacks for a major cooperation. This resulted in the loss of millions of future customers, Sony said one of its highest priorities is to rebuild public confidence. Much of the online community directed much of their frustration towards the hackers, while Sony’s first suspect was the highly acclaimed hacker collective known as “Anonymous”, Trend Micro’s Security Consultant, Rik Ferguson believes the breech was done by a more sophisticated criminal organization. Rik goes on to say “"This has all the hallmarks of commercial criminal activity going for a saleable commodity” (Stuart, 2011).

Cyber criminals take pride in creating chaos, and the chaos that cyber criminals inflict on their victims can be crippling to individuals and corporations. We have all heard about hackers getting information from major retail chains as well as information being leaked that included Social Security numbers for millions of people. We use the internet with somewhat of a naivete expectation that all of our information is safe. That is, until something untoward occurs, and then it can be all out panic.