Identity Theft – An Invisible Crime

Assuming another’s identity through fraud is what we call Identity theft. In this type of crime a person pretends to be someone else to gain illegal advantage from that person. It then becomes a profit loss statement. The one whole steals the identity gets all the illegal benefits and then one whom identity is stolen suffers heavy losses. The idea behind the identity theft is to use other person’s identity in such a way that it looks as if the same person is operating it. A criminal involved in identity theft can use the personal information of the victim like his name, date of birth, account numbers and credit card numbers to gain some benefits for him without the permission of the person actually holding those identities.The internet – The biggest monsterHackers across the world are known to be the highest and worst identity thieves. An experience hacker can easily breach the security of any individual or firm to use their identities for his illegal benefits. The internet is becoming the most essential and influential part of everyone’s life, these days lot’s of consumers use the internet for their monetary transactions, they depend fully on the internet which gives a vast space to hackers to steal their identities. Credit card frauds, account number stealing, breaching passwords are the common types of identity theft occurred through the internet.The biggest concern about identity theft is that it’s really difficult to detect. It’s really difficult to detect who and from where a hacker or identity thief is operating and causing heaving losses to an individual.Another concern about identity theft is that no one is safe. Everyone has an identity. Everyone does have money so who knows when you are the next target of the thieves, a thief might be living in your next door, or he might be operating from 1000′s of miles away from you.How it can be prevented:This is the biggest question mark for all the security agencies, all the legal bodies that how to stop this biggest scariest monster whose victims are growing in numbers almost every day. Like other severe crimes this is also becoming a very big challenge for all the security agencies.There are some way consumers or an individual can protect himself from this scariest crime.1. Every individual has a social security number which is unique. It is recommended that one should not give it freely to others. One should not carry his social security card everywhere because if thieves will steal your purse or wallet, your identity will be stolen easily.2. If you are using email for your monetary transaction with banks or other institutions, then it is recommended to protect it with a strong password. Change your passwords frequently, also in your password add combination of both letters and numbers.3. If you are using the credit cards and other number of identifications, try to minimize it when you are going out, the more identity symbols you will carry with yourself, the more chances are you will get stolen.4. If you saw someone using your identity, promptly report it to police or other security agencies to stop for further damage.5. Be careful while using the internet, either you are using instant messaging or surfing on websites, never disclose your personal information to strangers.