Why Stop Identity Theft?

Let’s put it, when you give your personal information to a company, it should be well protected. You would expect a company to have the proper infrastructure in place in making sure that no hacker or wicked employee would be able to access the client data maliciously. After all, if they do, then your credit card, social security, address, name, and more is now in the hands of an individual who would be able to impersonate you and cause havoc in physical and digital life. Unfortunately, the frequency of data breaches are all too common. According to IT firm Risk Based Security, an estimated 7.9 billion records of user data were stolen by hackers in 2019 alone. Allow that sink in, if just one of the 7.9 billion stolen records was your data, its likely that you too could fall victim to identity theft.

Identity theft looks and should be scary, and with its growth being even more disturbing. Picture this, in 2009, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission(FTC) noted that it received 1.4 million identity theft complaints equating to 1.7 billion dollars in damages. Ten years later,  in 2019, the FTC stated that it received over 3.2 billion identity theft reports, with a staggering 1.9 billion in damages. Thus, if the trend continues, more Americans like me and you would find ourselves victims of identity theft. In fact, worldwide, Javelin’s 2019 Identity Fraud Study found there were as many 14.5 million identity theft related complaints. However, behind the rise of identity theft, there has to be a fuel to its growth. Simply put, why is the trend of hackers chasing user data rising?

The answer lies in the information itself. Companies today demand a wide spectrum of information when one signs up for their services. In my experience alone, when creating online accounts for companies, a lot of the time I saw them ask for first and list name, phone number, address, and even credit card information. Take Facebook for example, when registering, they wanted me to input a lot of this personal data before I could use their services. With so much user data in the hands of companies, it is without a doubt why hackers are turning to companies for their data. Knowing that one successful data breach is a path to a wide-range of identity theft attacks, its not surprising that hackers are determined.

With most stolen data being credentials, personal data, or medical according to Verizon’s 2019 Data Breach Investigation Report, it shouldn’t be a surprise as this type of information is the most common required by companies upon registrations. While consumer reporting companies like Experian suggest that raw information such as credit cards and social security numbers are worth from $1 to $100, the raw data could be assembled into something more. Gary Cantrell, head of investigations at HHS Office of Inspector General, argues that while a medical report might seem basic, it is actually a “a treasure trove of all this information about you.” Hackers could parse the document for the social security number, address, patient name, and finance records to “take out a loan or set up a line of credit under patients’ names.” Thus, even the little data could be dangerous if properly utilized by hackers.

Take Brandon Reagin, a victim of medical identity theft who had his information stolen in one of the numerous breaches in 2004. Reagin, like many, experienced identity theft for the first time and learned of its severity only after falling victim. Reagin remembers it starting with “charges on his credit report”, which he repeatedly reported as suspicious to the bank. As Reagin calls it, the whole process was a “tumultuous decade of a mess”, with the breach never leaving him. Even 15 years after the breach, Reagin hasn’t been able to “undo all of the damage” including the “integrity of his own medical files.” As I put it earlier, the hacker who stole Reagin information was able to utilize the information for more than what it was worth. In Reagin’s case, with his medical report, the hacker was able to use it to steal cars and rack up “$20,000 worth of medical procedures.”   

As the issue is displayed on to me, I feel that something must be done. Companies today hold too much user data and aren’t taking its security serious. Thus, Identity theft is becoming an ever-growing problem, with company mismanagement of user data costing users like Brandon and possible to be you and me unneeded stress and liability. With that said, due to the severity of the issue, many solutions have been proposed in tackling this problem of identity theft. My next series post will discuss this ongoing debate, by analyzing the different solutions for their pros and weaknesses as well as suggesting myself what could be done to tackle identity theft from the company and user sides.

Bibliography

Anderson, Keith B., et al. “Identity Theft.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 22, no. 2, 2008, pp. 171–192. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27648247. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.

Schneier, Bruce, and Journal of International Affairs. “ON CYBERSECURITY.” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 71, no. 2, 2018, pp. 121–124. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26552335. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.

“What Hackers Actually Do with Your Stolen Medical Records.” Advisory Board Daily Briefing, http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/03/01/hackers.

United States, Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2019. Government Printing Office, 2019. 

United States, Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2009. Government Printing Office, 2009. 

“2019 Identity Fraud Study: Fraudsters Seek New Targets and Victims Bear the Brunt.” Javelin, 6 Mar. 2019, http://www.javelinstrategy.com/coverage-area/2019-identity-fraud-report-fraudsters-seek-new-targets-and-victims-bear-brunt.Meissner, Gerd. “2019 In Review: Data Breach Statistics and Trends.” Security Boulevard, 16 Jan. 2020, securityboulevard.com/2020/01/2019-in-review-data-breach-statistics-and-trends-4/.