We often heard of the term “identity theft”. Indeed, what is “identity theft”?

1 in 5 Australians was identity crime victims last year which cost up to $1.6 billion lost.  In the Australian society, there is an extensive concern about identity theft.  However, Australians have little knowledge about identity crime.  So what is identity theft?

Photo credit: Got Credit

According to the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Centre, identity theft can be sub-divided into five groups:

• Criminal identity theft
• Financial identity theft
• Identity cloning
• Medical identity theft
• Child identity theft

Criminal Identity theft

Criminal identity theft generally refers to the offender who fraudulently identifies him/herself as another person when arrested for a crime by presenting stolen or fake ID.  This leads to charge placing under the victim’s name and let the criminal off the hook.  Victims will only know their identity were stolen by chance, for example by receiving a court summon, discovering their drivers licenses are suspended when stopped for a routine traffic stop or through background checks done for employment purposes.  Unfortunately, victims can hardly clear the incorrect criminal record.  Victims might have to prove their own identities by providing some reliable information, like DNA testing, fingerprinting and going to court. Even though victims might obtain an expungement of court records, data aggregators might still have the incorrect criminal records in their databases, whereby affects victims in the future background check.

Financial identity theft

Financial identity theft is the most common type of identity theft.  Financial identity theft occurs when a thief uses stolen personal identity to commit a crime resulting in financial injury to the victim.  The stolen information may include names, bank account numbers, credit card numbers and other personal financial data.  With this information, thieves can get credits, apply for loans or mortgages and purchase goods and services, claiming under the name of the victims.

Identity cloning

Instead of stealing other’s personal information for financial gain or committing crimes under victim’s name, the identity thief uses other’s information to assume his/her identity in daily life is referred as identity cloning.  Criminal comprises victim’s life by actually living and working as the victim.  Illegal immigrants, people evading from creditors or other individuals, or those who simply want to become “anonymous” for some reasons may perhaps commit identity cloning.

Medical identity theft

Medical identity theft occurs when a thief uses the victim’s name or health insurance number to see a doctor, get prescription drugs, claim health insurance and get other care.  When victim’s health record is mixed with the thief’s health information, it may affect future insurability, cause doctors relying on the misinformation in delivering future medical care and result in extra payment records.

Child identity theft

When a child’s identity is used by another person to apply for government benefits, open bank and credit accounts, apply for a loan or rent a place to live, such crime is identified as child identity theft.  The offender could be a family member, a friend or even a stranger targeting on children.  Usually, such cases are undetected for years, as most children will only discover the problem when they grow up.

Have you ever encountered any types of identity theft?  If yes, don’t be shy and send us your case to areyoutheonlyone1@gmail.com

-KYCL-

UNSW Facebook site is hacked by the identity thief AGAIN in two days.

The University of New South Wales’ Facebook page was flooded with a series of images of porn stars and other inappropriate content in two embarrassing hacks.

Shortly before the UNSW’s Open day, images of semi-clad women and links to sex tips were posted on its Facebook page.  One of the posts displayed images of a porn actress Mia Khalifa, while others showed photos of women’s bottoms and breasts, instructions on how to French kiss and picture of guns.

 

Screenshot from UNSW Facebook page

The UNSW spokesperson said they found out its page had been hacked early on Saturday morning and tried more than three hours to reach the administrators in Australia and internationally.  After six hours, the UNSW managed to regain access to the site through other means and remove all the racy content.

However, the second bout of hacking on the UNSW Facebook page over the weekend began late on Sunday night.  The UNSW Facebook page started posting more lewd images, including images of soft core porn and sex advice and rather a weird link to the ‘best universities in Italy’.

Screenshot from UNSW Facebook page

Those posts hit a large numbers of likes and comments.  At midnight on Sunday, the UNSW published a Tweet stated that it alerted the hack.

Screenshot from Twitter @UNSW

So why had the UNSW’s Facebook page been hacked?

One told SMH that the intern had been handed the keys to the Facebook account, whereas some suggested that the UNSW staff must be drunk.   However, Hacklabs director Chris Gatford said that there were 2 possible scenarios for the embarrassing hacks:

1. Person who had the authorisations was trapped into providing the password, like phishing email
2. Hacker guessed the username and password barrier

The UNSW has long been exposed to cyber-attacks.  In 2013, students and staff were subjected to a number of intrusion attacks by unidentified hackers.  25 affected servers and a number of user accounts were shut down on Jan 5, 2014.

The hacking scandal affects the UNSW’s reputation, upsets potential students’ impression on the UNSW and makes the UNSW embarrassed especially when it failed to deflect the second hack.

The hacking scandals exposed the poor cyber security at the UNSW.  Sydney IT security expert, Troy Hunt criticized the UNSW for not implementing basic IT security protocols.  The cyber-attacks did tap into greater fears over the UNSW cyber security and the confidentiality of student information as in the university information system, it contains countless student data like health, academic records and contact details. Indeed, such hacking scandals are just reflecting the regularly occur cyber-attacks at universities across Australia.

Identity is everything.  We should not only take action after things happened, rather we should prevent it.  Here are some tips to prevent identity theft for personal/ organisation Facebook page.

1. Use two-step password system, known as a multi-authenticator login through a secondary source, such as an SMS
2. Only senior staff are allowed to hold the key information
3. Use a more complex password combination
4. Change the password more frequently
5. Prohibit IT staff from drinking during their shift

-KYCL-