Wall Street Journal: Hackers Aren’t Only Threat to Privacy
The Wall Street Journal reports on risks to private data from identity thieves:
The number of identity-theft victims in the U.S. jumped 12% to 11.1 million in 2009, according to research company Javelin Strategy & Research. Fraud cases reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is partly run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, climbed 23% to 336,655 last year.
Information that people inadvertently make public on sites like Facebook plays a role. So too do the sort of technical exploits demonstrated by the group that recently exposed a flaw in AT&T Inc.’s website.
But in many cases, finding social-security and credit-card numbers or medical records on the Internet doesn’t require computer expertise. Instead, such information is accessible to anyone who knows where to look.
A file containing names, social-security numbers and home phone numbers of about 1,000 current and former Atlanta Fire Rescue employees was discovered online in April by city officials. [...]
So far this year, U.S. organizations have reported 317 data breaches, on pace to exceed 2009′s total of 498, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit organization. These days the ITRC receives between 700 and 1,000 calls a month from identity-theft victims looking for help, said Linda Foley, the organization’s founder. [...]
Often data come from breaches where hackers have bypassed weak security systems, said Steven Peisner, president of Sellitsafe Inc., which helps merchants avoid processing fraudulent purchases. He estimates he sees about 15,000 or so stolen accounts being published each month in these dark corners of the Internet.
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