Theories and Trends in Identity Theft

Identity theft is the stealing and use of someone’s personal information and is one of the fastest growing crimes in the nation (Dole, 2005). According to Federal Trade Commission estimates, identity thieves victimize approximately 10 million Americans every year at a cost of an astonishing $50 billion (2005). Identity theft has been going on for years now and is easily done with the help of today’s technology. According to the Federal Trade Commission, there are six common ways that identity thieves get a hold of personal information. The varieties of methods that are used are dumpster diving, skimming, phishing, changing the victim’s address, stealing, and pretexting (Federal Trade Commission). Once someone’s identity is stolen,

Identity theft is a major concern today in our country, millions of a person’s identity have been compromised for many of years. Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person’s personal information such as name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, credit card number, or other identifying information to take on that person’s identity in order to commit fraud or other crimes. Stealing an identity is, unfortunately, surprisingly easy to do and happens when you least expect it. Just by opening your mail, something that has personal information on it, throwing it in the trash. Therefore, a person can go through your trash and take all that information and use it against you to take on a new identity.

According to the Federal Trade Commission Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States of America. They estimated that 10 million people a year are victimized by the crime which comes out to about 19 people per minute are becoming victims of this crime. Given these extremely worrying statistics it has never been more important to be informed about the crime of identity theft and how to avoid it in your daily life especially as more schemes and ways to unknowingly forfeit your information are introduced with the prevalence of the World Wide Web (www, w3). More than just knowledge of the crime of identity theft it is also important to know what protections you can set to help protect your information. Also, given the amount of businesses and organizations, and the various vulnerabilities that their systems may have, that must have access and know significant information about your life it is also invaluable to understand how to recover from your information being lost. This paper will be used to inform about this growing crime including what identity theft is and the different types that exist, what information is most important to protect, what you can do to avoid it, how to recover from it and what that may entail, and how this applies to the field of computer science and what should be looked for when building systems, and different kinds of attacks that can happen.

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

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.

In recent years, the world has seen significant changes in technology. With new technology come new challenges. One of those new challenges is identity theft. Identity theft can happen through the internet, ATM, emails, or even a phone. Identity theft can happen when any person(s) takes an individual’s information, such as their Social Security number, or even banking information for financial gain. “Close to 100 million Americans have their personal information placed at risk of theft each year when records in databases are lost, stolen or accessed by unauthorized individuals” (Information systems and technology, n.d.). Identity theft not only costs the person, whose

In American society, there a fast growing white-collar crime that is becoming more and more popular among criminals. This white collar crime is call identity theft. Thousands of people have their identities stolen every year. Identity theft happen when criminals get a hold and use other people persona information such as credit card numbers, bank accounts numbers, insurance information and social security number to purchase good and other services fraudulently. More than 9 million American are victimizes by identity theft each year. With this number being so high it is evident that identity theft is one of the fast- growing crimes to hit the United State. Three reason why identify theft if being such a fast- growing crime in the United State is because more people credit card information is being stolen, more people are shopping online and more medical information is being stolen.

Identity theft is a fast growing white-collar crime that is gaining the notoriety of an epidemic. There is a wealth of information on identity theft and prevention yet this area of crime is developing rapidly and is shrouded in myths.

In today’s society, unfortunately, the fraudulent based crime of identity theft has gained dominance as one of the most common crimes in the country. In response to the ever-growing trend of identity theft, all states have passed some form of law in an attempt to address the problem. Take, for instance, the state of North Carolina, to establish the necessary statute to combat the problem they first had to identify what constituted identity theft. What the North Carolina legislature developed for the purpose of establishing an identity theft crime is anyone who intentionally sets out to commit the fraudulent use of another person’s identity for the purpose of gaining any credit, money, or other types of reward, whether monetary or otherwise

     Identity fraud is use of a persons name, social security number or other personal identifying information. Once armed with this information the thief can open accounts and rack up huge debts for goods and services. These criminals also open up various accounts ranging from cell phones to bank accounts. Once these accounts are established they don’t pay the bill

Internet identity theft is a serious danger in our world today, victims of this crime have had their lives ruined and in some cases have ended up in jail because of crimes committed by an identity thief. Internet identity theft is “the criminal act of fraudulently obtaining the personal information belonging to another individual within the realm of a computer or electronic setting.”(1) Throughout the past several years there have been several laws passed to combat and keep up with this ever evolving crime, those laws include The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act, The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, and The Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2008. In addition to these, several states have pending legislation out there to either pass new state laws or revise current ones. In this paper, theses laws and the pending legislation in some of those states will be discussed in detail.

During this project, the question arose; who is or has been the biggest winner of identity theft? In the few rare cases involving identity theft where a perpetrator was caught, the culprits in the following cases were identified. And the runner up in the game of identity theft is: Albert Gonzales who in 2008 stole 30 million credit and bank card numbers, hacked several corporate data bases and stole over $200 million. And our grand prize winner is: Philip Cummings who in 2002 obtained 15,000 consumer’s identities and hacked a credit reporting agency. He stole $2.7 million. (Graphs.net). While there is no clear solution to prevent being a victim of identity theft, a person can only take precautions, be aware of their surroundings, monitor

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).

     In today's society, there is a white-collar crime that has greatly risen in popularity among criminals. This crime is identity theft. Hundreds of thousands of people have their identities stolen each year. Identity theft is when these criminals obtain and use consumers personal information such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, insurance information, and social security numbers to purchase goods or services fraudulently. According to the Federal Trade Commission, over 1.1 million people were the victim of identity theft. With this number, it is very evident that identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in our country. This paper will attempt to more thoroughly define identity theft. It will

Identity theft affects millions of Americans every day. Scam artists and hackers lay in wait for an unsuspecting person to get caught up their scheme through ignorance or naivety so they can take full advantage of their personal information to do as they desire with it. Problem is, it infiltrates and depreciates the integral infrastructure of our society which creates a cultural lapse through the declination of economic and cultural growth and double jeopardizes an already unstable system to the brink of its destruction. To understand how