Scary Cybercrime Information that Makes You Rethink Identity Theft
Not afraid of identity theft? Maybe you should be
In today's computer savvy world, it's difficult to believe that all computer users aren't aware of identity theft. To most people, having a computer is as necessary as having a car or a phone.
People who have cars and phones obviously have insurance to protect their possessions. So why do those same people go without security or 'insurance' to protect their computers and personal information and avoid identity theft?
Cybercrime has grown. Just in case you don't know the latest about identity theft, here is some scary information that might get you to rethink protecting yourself on the Internet.
Latest identity theft news
There is a vast underground economy that thrives on stolen information.
Used for everything from simple spamming to DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, thieves rent giant botnets to criminals for malicious activity. Botnets is a popular term for robots and semi robots that run autonomously. Hundreds of thousands to millions of infected computers make up these botnets.
Springing up seemingly overnight, companies in countries like India and Pakistan, crack CAPTCHs for a small fee. When these CAPTCHs are cracked, criminals have access to your personal information.
-- Phishing attacks cost the U.S. consumer nearly $500 million over the last two years.
-- Malware continues to spread and become more sophisticated.
-- Spam makes up 95% of all email sent.
-- Social networking sites are being attacked by worms and other malicious attacks.
Are you scared yet? You should be. And yet, according to Consumer Reports, only 35% of computer users connected to the Internet have any type of software to guard against malware. Only 18% has protection against viruses. Quite frankly, this is unbelievable.
Avoiding identity theft isn't rocket science. Make it standard practice not to use a computer that isn't protected by malware software and an antivirus program. Don't become a statistic -- use this simple quiz to see if you're doing all you can to protect yourself from identity theft.