As my dad has just had some purchases made on his credit card that weren’t his, and one of his employees just had his identity stolen, Internet privacy is definitely something that is on my mind. Neither my dad nor his employee Mike have any idea of how their information was stolen, a fact, that is quite troubling. A very possible answer is that they had their information copied via the Internet.
While browsing the Internet, I found that identity theft is increasing every year, and in 2008 over 10 million people were affected. Credit card fraud is the largest type of identity theft, taking up 26% of identity theft. As identity theft is increasingly becoming more popular, people have to be more weary when using the Internet. As of 2009, the top ten security threats on the Internet according to TechRepublic were:
1. Social Networking As an Avenue of Attack
2. More Attacks on the Integrity of the Data
3. Attacks on mobile Devices
4. Virtualization
5. Cloud Computing
6. More Target Attacks on Non-Windows Operating Systems
7. Third-Party Applications
8. Side Effects of Green Computing
9. IP Convergence
10. Overconfidence
Out of these ten, I found number six to be the most frightening, as just buying my first Mac, I thought that I didn’t have to worry about viruses or being hacked, but apparently it is supposed to very easy to be hack into them. According to SPENDONLIFE.com, the reason why PCs get the most press for being attacked is that,
“Just as terrorists prefer to attack large gatherings of people where they can do the most damage, so do hackers prefer to write malware that will spread to the greatest number of computers — and that means Windows.”Does this mean that I have to buy security for my computer?
If you unfortunately do find yourself a victim of identity theft like my father and Mike, there are four vital steps the Federal Trade Commission suggests that you take:
I had some charges on one of my credit cards before that weren't mine, so I know how scary it can be. To think that there are people out there who steal others identity is scary. I never realized that there was that many people affected by indentity theft.
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