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Five Ways to Fight ID Theft

What's more valuable than your own good name? ID theft is the fastest growing white-collar crime in the country. What's a CSO to do?

Identity theft is difficult enough to prevent that even someone as security-savvy as a CSO can himself fall victim, as Stewart learned the hard way. But even if you don't work in the financial services industry, which is on the front line of preventing financial fraud, your customers and fellow employees are counting on you, the CSO, to keep it from happening to them.The More Perfect Crime People's identities, not pocket money, were the target of one sophisticated pickpocket ring busted by the New York City Police Department. Organizers quickly forged New York state driver's licenses using the names of women whose wallets had been stolen. Within hours of the purse-snatchingsbefore the victims had canceled their credit cardswomen dressed in mink coats and high heels were flashing fake photo IDs as they charged expensive items in stores.

"If I go and rob somebody, how much am I going to get? Maybe $100, $200," says Lt. John Otero, commanding officer of the NYPD's Computer Crime Squad, who worked on the case. "If I steal someone's identity, I can get from $4,000 to $10,000."

In the simplest instances of identity theft (which are more accurately described as identity fraud), criminals use a stolen credit card number, or perhaps a stolen PayPal or eBay account name and password, to purchase expensive items for personal use or resale. In more complicated cases of identity theft, thieves open new lines of credit or access bank accounts. And in the most serious cases of identity takeover, they use forged or even government-issued driver's licenses or passports to do all that and morerenting apartments, obtaining medical care, even identifying themselves as the identity theft victim when charged with a crime.

The weapon? Personal information, including the victim's name, address, mother's maiden name, date and place of birth, and the most coveted number of allthe Social Security number, which cannot be changed even after it's been stolen. "Once they have this information, they own youthey are you," Otero says.

The Internet makes this type of crime even more efficient. With "phishing" scams, criminals send out bogus e-mails telling recipients that they need to confirm certain account details to reactivate their accounts or claim prizes. The messages appear to come from a reputable business and often include logos and text lifted from company e-mails and websites. But the links actually go to phony but convincing websites set up solely to gather information, whether it's ISP passwords or Social Security numbers.