Recession hits spammers and ID thieves
Europeans worth twice as much as Americans, shocker
THESE ARE HARD economic times for all, including, it would appear, for identity thieves. So plentiful are the data leaks nowadays, with governments losing data left, right and centre and companies carelessly passing around people’s credit card numbers and other personal information, that it's bringing the prices of identity theft to new all time lows, hitting the fraudsters where it hurts.
Cyber crims are even having to resort to legitimate business strategies, like offering volume discounts, in order to keep revenues at an acceptable level, according to a Symantec Internet security report. The latest twice-yearly report, released this week, says that access to bank accounts was now going for as little as $10 in the second half of 2007, and that thieves were increasingly selling stolen credit card numbers in batches of 500 for a total of $200, or 40 cents each [More than mine's worth - Ed]. This is less than half of what they were going for in the first half of 2007.
Buying a person’s whole identity, which includes a credit card number, Social Security number or ID and a person's name, address and date of birth, would only now set you back $100 for 50, so $2 per stolen identity.
Apparently though, some identities are worth more than others. Europeans will be happy (?) to know that their identities are much more coveted and, therefore more expensive (by about 50 per cent) than those of Americans, for instance. Some Euro identities even sell for as much as $30 a piece.
As much as we would like to claim that the reason for this is the fact that us Europeans are just worth oodles more for our class, brilliance and wit, it is more likely that the real reason lies in the fact that European identities are easier to use in multiple countries.
As ironic as it is that the volatile economy is squeezing the crooks dry, too, the report also highlights another interesting fact; there is indeed honour amongst thieves.
The report notes that if any crook passes on fraudulent information, they can expect harsh consequences from other hackers. Alfred Huger, vice president of Symantec Security Response told Fox News:
"If the seller says there's $10,000 in a bank account, and there isn't $10,000 in there, their ability to sell will drop through the floor."
As, no doubt, will a number of their limbs and internal organs. µ
L’Inq
Faux News
Comments
Oh that Faux.
On behalf of the left-ponders {pawnders?}, I would like to invite all of you rightside gents and ladies, fortewit, to the great American Fire Sale: We're going out of business, and Everything Must Go! (absotively and posolutely!) Be sure to bring all of your finest sovereigns, because I'm sure that we have a lot of "Cash in the Attic." There may even be an ark of the covenant somewhere abouts. Yes. I'll leave the light on for you, but please offen it when you takeaway. Remember that we're presently unable to make change due to defacing the value of the metal. If you need further assistance, call Crawford, TX. For gods' sake hurry, before we lose our footing!Reasons why banks cannot stop identity and card fraud from growing
Massive increase in fraud crimes should make the government and banks realise that their data protection and Chip and PIN systems are diverting rather than deterring fraud crimes.This shows that fraud will continue to grow until they exploit KEY and PIN system described on website www.xwave.co.uk which will deter BOTH identity and card fraud by making signature and PIN systems reliable and foolproof.
Fake documents have made our signature system unreliable while skimmers and pin-hole cameras etc. have made PIN system unreliable. We have option to make signatures reliable by personalising them with ID stickers and option to use Card Key Code to make PIN system reliable to make use of stolen and skimmed cards meaningless. By ignoring to exploit this system banks are only letting fraud crimes grow.
ID KEY system will eliminate the need for us to protect our personal and card details since fraudsters will be deterred from misusing these stolen details.
Proposed ID KEY can be treated as a reliable international ID card because it will personalise signature and PIN number to only the right individuals in any country.
We hope that the government and banks will appreciate these details and exploit KEY and PIN system before it is too late to stop a fraud boom.
European IDs worth more ?
I doubt that it is because it is valuable across more countries. You can use a US ID over several countries as well.I think that our Euro ID is worth more because
a) it is harder to get all the details (no website promoting all-you-can-know over here), and
b) you still have to prove your ID in a number of transactions
Banks, for example, are sticklers for ID cards. My wife was once forbidden to cash a check in my name on my account, because she did not have any signed paper from me that allowed them to accept the transaction.
Personally, I thought that was taking things a bit far. I agree in advance to anyone sending me money, I don't see the problem there.
So I don't see how it can be as easy to use an ID in Europe. A credit card number ? Yeah, that's easy enough, for sure. But passing yourself off as someone else in a bank ? To get credit ?
Don't think so.
Why do I feel that I'm wrong ?
Poof! Utterly Out of Milk!
Oh the so green grass on the other side (bank accounts) are not so green after all.Plus the cows (consumers) are drying up with two calf at every.... well you get the picture.
Another reason I would suggest here is that the tax man will be if not already in deeper competition with cyber criminals. It's a situation where cyber criminals are stealing money from others that is to be used to pay their taxes and ironically the criminals pay their taxes with it. But in doing so the government coffers just doesn't get ahead.
Smells like what happened in Brazil a few years back will occur again, somtin's gotta give. Don't be suprized that your bank account will close automatically because it was deemed expendable.