Week 4 - Identity Theft

Hardware – Identity Theft

With all the information that is being passed along the information highway each and every day, sometimes people forget and get careless.  

A recent survey by Confident Technologies in San Diego shows a woeful lack of concern by users of smartphones and tablets over keeping their private information secure on those devices.

More than half said they do not even take the simple step of using a password or PIN to lock their smartphone or tablet, even though smartphones are being used for more and more important transactions. According to the survey:

•  50 percent use banking, financial or stock trading apps on their mobile devices.
•  35 percent have applications connected to online shopping or auction accounts.
•  77 percent use social networking applications such as Facebook or LinkedIn.
•  97 percent have e-mail applications running on their mobile device.
•  85 percent of American adults own cell phones, and many use them for much more than just making calls -- for e-mail, instant messaging, Web access, shopping online, even banking, bill-paying and much more.

Thieves try to get you to tell them your personal information saying something like your credit card has been deactivated and you need to act immediately through a link they provided. A recent scam detected involved thieves representing themselves as Well Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and Capital One to obtain personal information.