Identity Protection A Must Due To Hackers And Lacking Procedures

Identity theft is mostly caused by criminals trying to steal the personal information necessary to rip you off. One such group of criminals are hackers and they seem to be going after us and their wealth. If this wasn’t enough our own companies are giving our confidential information to these identity thieves.The lack of proper policies and procedures required to secure our personal information has fueled the growth of identity theft. Governments and companies are exposing our private information needlessly.

The Federal Government realized the growing concern and passed the FACT Act allowing Americans to place fraud alerts thus giving us some protection. Idenity Protection services have arisen to combat this growing epidemic and to protect our identities. These companies, such as LifeLoc, place and renew fraud alerts, remove pre-approved credit offers and include insurance to protect you from financial identity theft. We still remain exposed to medical and criminal identity theft but at least our creditis protected. It is apparent our [leaders need|Government needs] to do more. Here are some examples from last year of our inept security.

Hackers

• The Georgia Department of Human Resources warned parents of 140,000 babies born there between April 1, 2006, and March 16, 2007 that a data breach has exposed some of their private and medical information to the risk of fraud.
• Online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. reported that one of its databases was hacked and personal information from more than 6.3 million customers was stolen.
• Western Union informed about 20,000 customers of a potential compromise of their personal data due to a database intrusion in which thousands of customers had their personal information stolen by hackers.
• The state of Massachusetts warned 150,000 members of its Prescription Advantage Insurance program that their personal records may have been stolen by a criminal who has been caught and had already committed identity theft.
• Close to 79,000 health insurance customers of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co were affected when a database of a vendor was hacked.
• Kingston Technologies Inc., informed 27,000 customers of a data breach that took place in 2005.
• AT&T’s online store was hacked and private data stolen from approximately 19,000 customers.
• Monster.com was hacked and the confidential information of 1.3 million job seekers was stolen.
• TJX, the retailer that operates T. J. Maxx and Marshall’s lost the private information of up to 46 million customers as hackers used a insecure wireless network in one store to gain access to the main database.
• Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had a data breach compromising the private details of up to 34,000 workers.

Lack of Proper Procedures and Policies

• SAIC, a military contractor, announced they compromised the private information of 580,000 military personnel when they failed to encrypt transmitted data.
• The state of Massachusetts warned 150,000 members of its Prescription Advantage insurance program that their private information may have been stolen by an identity thief.
• Milwaukee PC exposed the credit card numbers of 65,000 customers.
• In a study by The Washington Post personal information including the SSN of Colin Powell and Troy Aikmen were found in public government records on the internet. This information was readily available from land deeds. That’s a lot of homeowners with compromised private information.
• 200,000 customers of Blockbuster in Florida had their private information exposed when they threw out unshredded membership applications in to the trash.
• In California Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s office had the SS#’s, addresses and signatures of more than 650,000 Californians available for sale on a website for $6 each.

Over 117 Million Americans had their personal records compromised since 2005. The trend continues and protecting yourself from the continuing threat of identity theft is necessary for your financial well being. You can use an id protection service or do it yourself but you should definitely realize the risk of identity theft and take action to protect yourself and your loved ones before you too become [spin]an identity theft victim.