Identity Theft: A Crime

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Identity theft is a crime in which a criminal possesses key pieces of personal information, like SSN’s or driver's license numbers, and use it to personify someone else. The personal information can be used to obtain credit cards, goods, and any service using the name of the victim, or to provide the criminal with counterfeit credentials. This includes getting credit cards, personal loans, merchandise and services. Not only causing more debt, a criminal might provide counterfeit ID to authorities, causing a criminal record and creating arrest warrants for the person whose identity had been stolen. Identity theft causes a lot of pressure on its victims and presents a problem to obtaining a job, businesses or organizations and government agencies, …show more content…
As one security specialist named Gunter Ollmann said, “Interested in credit card theft? There’s an app for that.” (New Scientist, 2010)This statement showed how easy it is for these hackers or criminals to access all kinds of information on the web. In the “deep web” you can actually purchase identities with ease. There is a program that will infect its victim’s computer operating systems and the computer software is called Zeus. The program is completely hacker or criminal, user friendly that even someone who has very little knowledge on the subject can still use it. Even though the hacking program is very simple to use, this program still does not change the life changing effects that Zeus and other programs like it, can do to the victim’s computer operating system and the victims. For instance, this article also stated that “programs like Zeus can steal credit card information, important documents, and even documents necessary for homeland security. If the hacker were to gain this information, it would mean identity theft or even a possible terrorist attack.” (New Scientist, 2010) Synthetic identity theft is a new version of identity theft. In traditional ID theft, the thief steals all of the personal information of one person to create a new …show more content…
If someone steals your identity, you have the right to remove fraudulent information from your credit report. For example, the thief may steal one person’s social security number, combine it with another person’s name, and use someone else’s address to create a brand new identity. The thief can then use this fraudulent identity to apply for credit, rent an apartment, or make major purchases. Unfortunately, synthetic ID theft is difficult to detect because the fraud isn’t directly tied to just one person. Also, children’s social security numbers are often targeted in these frauds, because no one would be checking their credit scores until they are much older. Fraud alerts and monitoring services would not be able to stop or prevent these
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