Identity Fraud: Outnumbered

This hour long program was broadcast in the UK last night and is a must watch program for the average computer user in avoiding having your identity compromised whilst using your computer
You may need to install the BBC iPlayer and the availability of the transmission may be only for the UK :-\

BBC Iplayer home page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

Program transmission
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/i...2&scope=iplayerlast7days&version_pid=b009rh9v

Also please note that this transmission is not available for download and can only be watched on line for the next six days

 

Very interesting and I was at friends lastnight and we watched this programme, she also emailed our local council as well lastnight to be taken off the electoral roll as the programme stated, the reply from the chap at the coucil was flippant and he basically dismissed that ID fraud is a problem and also admitted that the council sell your data on if you have nto opted to be taken off the roll.

To be taken off the roll is nto as easy as you'd think as you would have to be in fear of harm happening to you or have a court order???!!!!

Seems as if my MP will be recieving an email about this as we did a quick search of our names lastnight on 192.com and could get details of our full name, location and mother maiden name which was th emost worrying as this is what banks use as a security question! So Nick being in the banking world you know how serious this can be in this malware day and age, as folk dont want to rob our house they want to rob your ID.

 

Yes it is a very serious concern as even small details like your name and address getting in to the wrong hands can lead to your identity being stolen. Everything else to a criminal is a valuable bonus so do take care when your on line as you never know what can happen.

 

Isn't that point a somewhat alarmist one since someone can easily get your name, address, And phone number in the phone book?:confused The rest is pretty scary.

 

That expert who was from Sophos and their product does not update hourly!! many good AVs at least update once daily NOT hourly so would love to have the AV he was using????? , but again duty of care is in the hands of the user also, however the actual gov depts who deal with your ID dont seem to give a HOOT!

Yes Laura, many names and addresses are in the phonebook and easily accessable, but this programme highlighted that armed with just names you can find out alot about someone via the internet, as in a senario the programme had was a guy sitting in a town center with a laptop, he quizzed a few folk and for one girl found her birth certificate and her mothers maiden name ( she has only just found this maiden name out a few weeks earlier herself ) these details can easily be used to signup for creditcards, loans etc

So raid someones trash, find some bills with names and details, search for mothers maiden name and other details online and its easy to portray yourself as someone else, one area also that the programme mentioned is that social websites are a prime target, Facebook etc, where folk innocently put many details about themselves online for all to read.

Alarmist I know but for what my friend found out is that the very gov depts that should be protecting our ID, are infact selling this info on to agencies.