IDENTITY THEFT IN BANKING

Identity theft  is a term used to refer to fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits. The term is relatively new and is actually a misnomer, since it is not inherently possible to steal an identity, only to use it. The person whose identity is used can suffer various consequences when he or she is held responsible for the perpetrator's actions. In many countries specific laws make it a crime to use another person's identity for personal gain.

Identity theft is somewhat different from identity fraud. However, the terms are often used interchangeably. Identity fraud is the result of identity theft. Someone can steal or appropriate someones identifying information without actually committing identity fraud.

Identity fraud is a synonym of unlawful identity change. It indicates unlawful activities that use the identity of another person or of a non-existing person as a target or principal tool.

Identity fraud can occur without identity theft, as in the case where the fraudster has been given someone's identity information for other reasons but uses it to commit fraud, or when the person whose identity is being used is colluding with the person committing the fraud [1].

Types

According to the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center[4] and other sources, identity theft can be sub-divided into five categories:

* business/commercial identity theft (using another's business name to obtain credit)

* criminal identity theft (posing as another when apprehended for a crime)

* financial identity theft (using another's identity to obtain goods and services)

* identity cloning (using another's information to assume his or her identity in daily life)

* medical identity theft (using another's information to obtain medical care or drugs)

Techniques for obtaining personal information

In most cases, a criminal needs to obtain personally identifiable information or documents about an individual in order to impersonate them. They may do this by:

* Stealing mail or rummaging through rubbish containing personal information (dumpster diving)

* Retrieving information from redundant equipment, like computer servers that have been disposed of carelessly, e.g. at public dump sites, given away without proper sanitizing etc.

* Researching about the victim in government registers, internet search engines, or public records search services.

* Stealing payment or identification cards, either by pickpocketing or surreptitiously by skimming through a compromised card reader

* Remotely reading information from an RFID chip on a smart card, RFID-enabled credit card, or passport

* Eavesdropping on public transactions to obtain personal data (shoulder surfing)

* Stealing personal information from computers and computer databases (Trojan horses, hacking and Zero day attacks)

* Data breach that results in the public (i.e. posted on the internet) or easily-obtainable (i.e. printed on a mailing label) display of sensitive information such as a Social Security number or credit card number.

* Advertising bogus job offers (either full-time or work from home based) to which the victims will reply with their full name, address, curriculum vitae, telephone numbers, and banking details

* Infiltration of organizations that store large amounts of personal information

* Impersonating a trusted company/institution/organization in an electronic communication to promote revealing of personal information (phishing)

* Obtaining castings of fingers for falsifying fingerprint identification.

* Browsing social network (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc) sites, online for personal details that have been posted by users

* Changing your address thereby diverting billing statements to another location to either get current legitimate account info or to delay discovery of fraudulent accounts.

* Using false pretenses to trick a business (usually through a customer service representative) into disclosing customer information (pretexting)

* Use of 'contactless' credit card skimming technology to acquire data recorded on special RFID enabled cards

* Stealing checks to acquire banking information, including account numbers and bank routing numbers

BY:

WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA 

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