IdentityTruth Identifies Everyday Activities that Increase Your Risk for Identity Theft

WALTHAM, Mass. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- IdentityTruth, the leading provider of a new breed of identity theft monitoring services to help consumers avoid identity theft and safeguard their privacy and identity, today is issuing a warning to consumers about how everyday activities like using their phone, browsing the web and shopping can increase their risk of becoming victims of identity theft.

“In today’s fast-paced world, the way we live can actually provide many more opportunities for criminals to more easily target us as victims of identity theft,” said Steven Domenikos, CEO of IdentityTruth. “Most people don’t think about identity theft until it happens to them, and therefore miss opportunities to protect themselves from being victimized.”

Steven shares his list of 8 everyday activities that increase an individual’s risk for ID theft:

• Phone Home: Smart phones are more popular than ever. In the rush to grab a piece of the pie, phone vendors and carriers will perhaps sacrifice security for market share. While Apple vets all iPhone apps, some others - notably Android Market - do not. Fake banking apps have been discovered on Android Market and have been subsequently removed – but not before they were downloaded and used by an unnamed number of victims.
  
  Apple, of course, is vulnerable as well. With the lion’s share of the Smart Phone market, the successful release of a rogue application, even if only for a few days, would result in a huge payoff for the perpetrators. A May 2009 survey conducted by Trend Micro revealed that 1 in 5 Smart Phone users admitted to having been the targets of phishing scams.

• Staying Connected: It seems that everyone has at least one profile on a social networking site - and many people have more than one. Besides the spam friend requests that are received, presumably in an effort to get past the spam email filters, there are the add-on helper applications that pose just as much a danger as the rogue smart phone apps referenced above.
  
  The data contained on these sites when combined with information contained on school re-union sites, resume and job-search sites and other public information could be used to build personal profiles, and enable identity thieves to steal your whole persona.

• Check that URL: In October 2009, ICANN approved the user of non-western characters in web addresses. Beginning in mid-2010, one will begin to see addresses in Arabic, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic and others. With certain foreign characters looking like western characters, it is easy to see that the scam artists will use these to impersonate valid sites. Surely the security software will eventually catch up. But in the meantime, users will need to beware.
• It’s in the mail: When you receive applications for “preapproved credit cards in the mail” be sure that you open and shred the enclosed materials before throwing them away. According to the US Department of Justice: Criminals may retrieve those applications to try and activate the cards for their use without your knowledge. Also, if your mail is delivered to a place where others have ready access to it, criminals may simply intercept and redirect your mail to another location.
• Longer Log-ins: A recent report from Imperva shows the most commonly used passwords, including “123456” and “iloveyou”. Having such an easy-to-guess password – and worse, using it for multiple websites/services – makes you easier to target. Choose complex passwords that include both letters and numbers, never use the same password for more than one website, and change your passwords frequently – at least every 3 months.
• To reply?: If you get an email from any institution - be it your bank, your credit card company or the IRS asking that you reply with sensitive personal information do not respond under any circumstances. These phishing emails are still used by identity thieves preying on people that are too trusting, or too rushed to think twice.
• Trash that: Dumpster Diving is not an Olympic sport – it is a practice by which criminals comb through trash looking for personal financial information – cancelled checks, bank statements, credit card statements and more. Be sure to shred any and all documents containing any personal information before throwing them away.
• Shop till you drop: Double check all receipts from stores and ATMS – they may contain account information that identity thieves can use. Also, try to avoid kiosk ATMs - those freestanding units often do not have cameras and are statistically more likely to be infected by skimmers (electronic devices that allow thieves to record account and PIN numbers).

Identity theft is America's fastest-growing crime. More than 70 million identities will be lost this year alone with as many as 4 million social security numbers being stolen. Simple credit monitoring is not enough - only 15% of identity theft is credit-related (85% of identity fraud happens “outside” the credit system). IdentityTruth has discovered suspicious “identity events” for more than 1 out of 4 consumers who subscribe to its service.

IdentityTruth’s unique Faster than Fraud™ technology combines data from many different sources--going beyond simple credit-based protection to deliver a more complete picture of an individual’s identity risk.

The service continuously combines and analyzes any and all information that is discovered specific to an individual to detect suspicious activities, report possible fraud before it happens and provide concrete next-steps to resolve a problem that may arise.

About IdentityTruth

IdentityTruth is the leading provider of a new breed of service to help consumers safeguard their Privacy and Identity. IdentityTruth’s proprietary technology provides subscribers with advance notice of potential identity fraud so they can take better control to stop it before it becomes costly. IdentityTruth not only detects--but can actually predict--possible problems, and that is what makes IdentityTruth Faster than Fraud™. IdentityTruth is a privately-held, VC- funded company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Investors include Argonaut Ventures and Stata Venture Partners. For more information, go to www.IdentityTruth.com or call 781-684-1300.