People who have been the victim of identify theft know it can take months or even years to clean up the mess. It is one of the most stressful experiences one can have. The story I am about to share is very real. A close friend of mine was a victim of such a crime and the fact that someone was able to reset that person’s email password was all they needed to gain their personal information. Ironically, this person didn’t use simple passwords, yet it was still done. Still, make your passwords and security questions unique and don’t use the same information for multiple accounts. In fact, make the answers to your questions incorrect – just random information that isn’t even true. You may have to write down this information since all of us have so many accounts – making it impossible to remember everything. But, this minor inconvenience sure beats the major nightmare you will live if your identity is even stolen.
Herbert Thompson seems like just another smart academic software developer who loves formulas and geeking out. But he’s also stolen the identities of several casual acquaintances. In fact, in one case he gained access to a bank account in seven shockingly simple steps. He didn’t use any programming tricks, just a little sleuth work.
As part of an experiment and with the permission of some people he barely knew, Thompson stole identities to show the public how easy it is to get access to personal data and banking information. He proved it only requires some simple surfing for freely available personal data. What the following steps show is how vulnerable we all are to security breach. Read the full article »
