INFOGRAPHIC: Identity Theft Facts

Identity Theft Facts and Figures infographic

Identity thieves tell their secrets...

Identity theft is a crime that every criminally-minded individual should participate in because it is one of the easiest crimes a person can commit with little to any experience and minute chance of being caught in the act.  This is largely in part to law enforcement agencies and financial institutions being deluged with requests to handle the investigations involved in these transactions to catch every thief.  While there was a significant drop in identity crimes reported, there were 8.1 million adults who reported being victims (myself included).  Moreover, very few victims file reports or know what it is that made them a victim in the first place.

In the report below, CBS News did something very few media outlets have done - interview real identity thieves.  The two ladies featured in this video describe how these crimes are committed and how they often get away with them.  They detail everything from how they obtained false fingerprints to using social engineering to withdraw large sums of money from victims' accounts.  They also provided some good information for banks and consumers.  

WIFI Hotspots not secure?!?!

Who would have thunk it? I had to chuckle when I saw this article jump across my screen. I don't know what's funnier - the FBI catching on to how insecure airport "hot spots" are or that this was even news. The FBI released a statement this week warning citizens who use the WIFI connections at airports to be careful as the connections were suseptible to being hacked. According to the article,

"While many of these hot spots have secure networks, some do not, according to Supervisory Special Agent Donna Peterson of FBI's Cyber Division. And connecting to an insecure network can leave one vulnerable to attacks from hackers.

Agent Peterson said one of the most common types of attack is this: a bogus but legitimate-looking Wi-Fi network with a strong signal is strategically set up in a known hot spot...and the hacker waits for nearby laptops to connect to it.

At that point, your computer and all your sensitive information, including user ID, passwords, credit card numbers, basically belongs to the hacker, Peterson said.

The intruder can mine your computer for valuable data, direct you to phony webpages that look like ones you frequent, and record your every keystroke."

I'll accept this is news to most people who are unaware of the risks but most serious web users as well professionals have known this for years. This could have been an attempt by the FBI to curb a trend of online thefts from WIFI connections which would certainly under their jurisdiction. As you can tell from the article, there isn't much detail regarding why this is suddenly newsworthy.

FBI Mystery Man has been identified

The FBI has identified its mystery man as Scott Andrew Shain, born in 1955. The FBI says Shain was identified thanks to the help of the Social Security Administration. Who dimed him out? His parents apparently identified him by checking his picture on the FBI website.
For those of you who don't know or remember this the guy I talked about briefly last week when I mentioned "hide-and-go seek". While the FBI knows his name, aAgents still don't know the full extent of his criminal background, but they do know that he served in the U.S. Air Force and was from Boston.
Shain is now in federal custody on multiple counts of aggravated identity theft, such as stealing a dead man's identity. If you recall, this guy had 33 aliases and had a rap sheet for some of them. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't just a paranoid individual who suffered a mental illness and the aliases were a combination of personalities and/or identities to hide. I say that because unlike most identity thieves, he never sold his new identity and never turned it to profit for himself. As I read more, the more I'm suspicious of why he needed 33 aliases.

Hiding In Plain Sight

Do you ever have one of those conversations where you come up with a pretty remarkable revelation? I had such a revelation yesterday with my wife. We were discussing how good we both were at "hide and go seek". I'm sure we all discovered sooner or later it was much better to hide somewhere close to our "seekers" and in a place they would normally overlook. In other words, you have to "hide in plain sight". That thought found me no matter where I went this weekend. Getting a new birth certificate, burning your fingerprints, or playing dead seems a bit much like a semi-decent Hollywood movie. But the lessons are the same. Disguises don't work. Nothing works if you can't find a way to hide your real identity while you try to live your life as normal.

I know most of my security aficionados are probably somewhere asking, "Where's he going with this? And why discuss this in a public forum?". My answer to them is we should talk about this in the open because the bad guys already know what I'm telling you. In order to win at the proverbial game of "hide and go seek" in the security world, we must first think like our "hiders" and become much "seekers". For example, if you operate a CCTV system and need to know how to spot shoplifters and other rogue parties, I would begin to look at the ways in which they often try to appear as normal as possible such as dress and appearance, behavior, and demeanor. If you get a guy in an aisle who's trying his best to appear normal when in fact he is far from it, then hopefully you'll recognize this is as a "critical indicator".

I've attached a video I thought was relevant to this topic. Most fugitives evade capture by learning how to camouflage themselves with multiple behavioral patterns which suit their new identities. In the security disciplines, we find this sort of subterfuge with spies and terrorists. In order to gain the advantage, we must learn what mistakes someone like this would make. Maybe, their behavior will lead us to believe something is not quite right. Good cops know what these mistakes look like. If you've been to any escape and evasion course, you know this is one of the first things they teach. If you don't have this skill, might I recommend a good game of "hide and go seek" with your favorite five year old. I know it sounds strange but the games we play as children always come back to us as adults.