Identity Theft White Paper from McAfee

A recent white paper released by McAfee entitled Identity Theft shows that there has been a dramatic increase in the cases of computer-based identity theft.

In particular, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of keyloggers used to extract information from unwitting victims. The keylogger is a piece of software which, when on your computer, will log every key stroke that you make including your personal user names, IDs, pin numbers and passwords. This of course means that should you be a victim, criminals can take your personal data and identity and use it for their own purposes, which usually means extorting money from your financial accounts or taking out credit using your identity on their own behalf.

Additionally, the Anti-Phishing Working Group has had a huge number of increased reports of Phishing Alerts between 2004 and 2006. Sadly many phishing attacks are successful and it only takes a very small percentage of criminal success in order for significant monetary sums to be extorted.

Luckily, all is not lost and the White Paper (which can be found at http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/white_paper.html) also provides useful information and guidelines on how you can reduce the risk of being a victim of identity theft.

It is only by learning where we are vulnerable in our security measures that we can begin to understand where thieves can target us in order to attempt to try and steal our identity. Time spent researching this information will quickly reap dividends and enable your online and computer security to be increasingly robust in an attempt to thwart the criminals.

For further information and resources on identity theft, internet crime and online security visit the New Identity Theft website operated by Eric Hartwell.

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