Financial Reflections

Your identity may be for sale to the highest bidder.  The fact is, not all people who are out to pilfer your data are planning on using it themselves.  Often people make a career of stealing ids make their living selling that data to others, rather than going through the process of converting that data directly into cash.

It makes sense, as with many types of trade, people learn to specialize in one task and let others specialize in another part.  But the unfortunate thing is the high level of automation that’s been brought into the exchange of personal data.  There really are many marketplaces where crooks can make a living off of the good name of others.

Hackers run secret websites to sell your stolen information. Everything from credit card numbers, to all the data needed to fully assume your identity can be made available online for sale to the highest bidder. Take for example this story from Wired Magazine about one hackers attempt to take over all sites that were selling data to make one mega site. Fortunately, he’s out of business, but it certainly also opened up the door for replacement sites.

Like with all organized crime, the law enforcement sets up sting operations to fight this activity, but like all organized crime, it’s a game of cat and mouse, leaving your identity continuously vulnerable to folks who want to pilfer it and trade it.  The FTC says the average amount a criminal gains in a theft is $1,882*, which makes a single theft quite lucrative.

What’s someone to do about all this?  As always, one should check their credit report every year at a site like www.annualcreditreport.com, but the fact is, criminals can do a lot of damage in a hurry with stolen data, so it’s always worth looking at a paid identity theft prevention option as well.

* From the FTC’s 2006 Identity Theft Survey Report