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Half Billion Records Breached in 5 Years
In the late 90s and early 2000s, hacking had evolved from “phreaking” (hacking phone systems) to “cracking” (breaking into networks). At the time, hackers hacked for fun, for the challenge, and for fame and popularity within the hacking community. But soon enough, the public began spending more time online, shopping, banking, and managing personal affairs. Hackers are no longer wreaking havoc for its own sake, deleting files, or tormenting IT administrators. Now, they’re stealing proprietary data. Instead of fun and fame, today’s hackers are motivated by illegal financial gain.
Over the past five years, criminal hackers from all over the world have been targeting huge databases of Social Security and credit card numbers. The endgame for criminal hackers is identity theft. Once they obtain stolen data, their objective is to turn it into cash as quickly as possible. This either entails selling the data to identity thieves on black market forums, or using the information to create new accounts or to take over existing credit card accounts.
According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse’s Chronology of Data Breaches, more than 500 million sensitive records have been breached in the past five years. The Chronology of Data breaches lists specific examples of incidents in which personal data is compromised, lost, or stolen: “employees losing laptop computers, hackers downloading credit card numbers and sensitive personal data accidentally exposed online.”
So when a so-called “identity theft expert” claims that you can protect yourself from identity theft for free, simply by shredding documents, not giving out your Social Security number, locking your mailbox, and monitoring your online accounts, that person does not have the full picture. You should take all these precautions. But when almost everyone’s personal information has been stolen or compromised once or twice, as a result of breaches that are entirely out of our control, it’s clear that you simply can’t protect yourself on your own. This is why identity theft protection is a must.
Comment
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Comment by Justen on October 12, 2010 at 9:47am -
It really comes down to division of labor. Sure in theory you can monitor your credit, bank accounts, keep track of credit cards registered in your name, purchases, etc. But can you do it faster and more efficiently than someone who has massive resources and professional training in the task? Probably not. Do you have the time to do it on your own? Doubtful. Do you have the expertise? Possibly. But in all likelihood you're better off just forking out a little cash. Personally I handle my own affairs but it's not a bad idea to think about identity protection - especially if you have a deal of wealth or reputation to lose.
As for your timelines I think you're a little off. I know as early as 1998 I was in contact with people who were involved in large-scale internet based credit card fraud - "carding." I was not involved myself and actually didn't know until they disappeared and came back from prison several months later, but it's been going on for a long time. I did a bit of relatively harmless "cracking" during that time as well, and as early as 1996 - and I was just a kid riding the coattails of people who had a great deal more experience, indicating this had been going on for quite a while already and to some extent commercially. For-profit information espionage has probably been going on in commercial circles since the 80s and between governments since the 70s. Of course there was plenty of low/no-tech identity theft going on well before that, but the information revolution has made the job easier and more publicly visible.
© 2012 Created by Chris Pirillo.
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