Internet identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the U.S. today. For five straight years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ranked it as one of the most-reported types of fraud. Despite the increasing awareness of identity theft among consumers and financial institutions, the identity-theft racket shows no signs of slowing. Reported losses from identity theft, currently responsible for over 40 percent of all fraud complaints, approached nearly $300 million last year.
"True identity theft is a problem that goes far beyond simple credit-card fraud, against which consumers are fully protected, thanks to zero-liability laws and other regulations," says Dave Collett, a spokesperson for MasterCard. "ID theft is when a person's entire identity is taken over. For that to happen, a fraudster would need far more information than just what is found on a credit or debit card."
All too often, consumers provide that needed information unknowingly through careless Web surfing and by using computers whose security  is breached by virus and spyware infections.
One of the leading causes of identity theft online is consumers falling prey to phishing attacks, a form of identity theft that employs a criminal strategy that security professionals call social engineering. Essentially, the process works by tricking e-mail recipients into going to phony Web sites to divulge personal data , like bank-account numbers or credit-card information. Identity thieves also use technical subterfuge through spyware and Trojans to capture user names and passwords so they can gain access to consumers' financial details.
While many consumers have placed a great deal of faith in their antivirus or antispam software, industry experts say that security applications, for the most part, are not bulletproof as a method for fighting identity thieves. Rather, the software serves mainly to eliminate most major phishing and Trojan threats and works best only in combination with user awareness of increasingly sophisticated social-engineering tactics.
Avoid Suspicious Attachments
It might seem obvious, but you must be doubly cautious about opening e-mail attachments, which serve as one of the most common vehicles for Trojan horse programs, the worst kind of malware. Just because you recognize the e-mail sender as a family member, friend, or business associate does not make the attachments safe to open. The e-mail might have been sent from a friend's computer that had been infected with a Trojan-bearing worm. (continued...)
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