Identity Theft

Identity theft is generally considered to be the fastest-growing crime in the United States. The term itself refers to obtaining and using the personal identifying information of another person in order to fraudulently obtain goods and services. Personal identifying information includes things such as your name, date of birth, and Social Security number.

Roughly 700,000 people a year become victims of this crime. However, it is continually on the rise, with thieves employing a wide gamut of tactics from sophisticated online "phishing" scams to low-tech strategies like dumpster-diving. Thus, It is becoming more common - especially since the advent of the information age, when so much vital info about the world - and each other - is practically at our fingertips. That being the case, it goes without saying that practically anyone can become a victim.

The most common form of identity theft is credit card fraud; it is estimated to cost consumers hundreds of millions - some say billions - of dollars per year. Next is utilities fraud, followed by bank fraud. Credit card fraud can be particularly insidious, as you may not discover for quite some time that someone has, for instance, opened a new line of credit in your name and charged thousands of dollars to the account before leaving you stuck with the bill.

There are ways to protect yourself from identity theft. Credit monitoring, for instance, is absolutely critical to identity theft defense. Fortunately, you can obtain a free credit report from each of the three major credit-reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) annually. Thus, you can get a free copy of your credit report - one from a different credit-reporting agency - every four months. Likewise, regularly checking and balancing your bank account statements will also help you stay abreast of any irregularities that could be indicative of identity theft.

If you are already the victim of identity theft, it can be a long and arduous road getting back to some semblance of normalcy. On average, it is believed that it takes victims of identity theft six months to a year (and sometimes longer) to get matters rectified to some reasonable extent. This includes trying to recover money taken from bank accounts, as well as avoiding liability for goods and services that were never purchased or received (at least by the victim). Unfortunately, there is no sure-fire method to avoid becoming a victim. All you can do is take what precautions you can in order to mount a adequate identity theft defense. Just remember: it's easier to avoid becoming a victim than to recover from being one. In other words, this is truly a case where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The author runs a blog devoted to identity theft defense and protection: http://www.identitytheftdefensehq.com/

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Amazon.com has not only become the largest online bookstore, but is also a multinational ecommerce company. The company has been spreading its reach like branches of a river while supplying goods to countries across the world. Amazon.com started off by profiting from being an online book brokering system and later offering many products. Amazon.com grew its business through online associates in the form of users.

When scaling a company by having users contributing to both ends of business, buying and selling, fraudulent and malicious activities become inevitable. Amazon did not become one of the largest ecommerce websites in the world by lacking in security though. In 2009, Amazon started to offer multi-factor authentication to protect its users against fraud. They now offer free identification through any mobile device or computer which can run a Time-Based One-Time Password application. They also offer paid multi-factor authentication through a third party proprietary authentication token from Gemalto which is supposed to offer higher security.

Free Amazon Multi-Factor Authentication

If you are able to run a time-based one-time password application on your smart phone, tablet or computer you can utilize the free AWS MFA process. Using this method, when you log into your account with your traditional username and password, a token will be delivered to the application. The token is a one-time password that is generated from an out-of-band network separate from the user's login network which reduces the chances of man in the middle attacks and makes the authentication process more secure.

Gemalto Multi-Factor Authentication

To increase security even further, Amazon's users may pay for service through Gemalto which offers a keyfob device for authentication. Amazon states Gemalto's third part proprietary token device offers better security than the free process. After the RSA hard token breaches, many people are skeptical about the proprietary OTP token's security.

Secure Cloud Computing

Amazon, like many companies, is run on a cloud of servers which allows remote access of data to many users at once. Amazon.com and its cloud network offer financial information to its publishers so they can track their earnings. A publisher's user account could display earnings and options for payment to the user. This is one of the reasons why the need for authentication security using a multi-factor process was necessary.

One of the most secure forms of protection for any company storing data on the cloud is by using an out-of-band, multi-factor authentication process which Amazon has implemented. This is especially true for ecommerce websites which may be storing financial data and personal information belonging to thousands of users. This added layer of security could be the very reason why the multinational electronic commerce corporation has not been present on recent data breach lists.

2011 was the year of data breaches and more companies are becoming like Amazon and are starting to utilize cloud computing. Will these companies follow suit to provide better protection and privacy to their users that are accessing information on the cloud or will there be a bigger data breach list containing more corporations in 2012? Companies utilizing the cloud to store and access information need to add additional layers of security to protect the information and the best way for them to do that is to utilize multi factor authentication.

Adam is a network security professional who believes out-of-band authentication is the most secure form of two factor authentication utilizing a one-time password. He writes to inform businesses about upcoming changes to government regulatory compliance and remote access security.

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It was only a couple of months ago that the United State Government led by the Justice Department instituted a nationwide sweep in order to clamp down on identity fraud. It is no coincidence that it was timed to coincide with the beginning of tax season. This time of year has been a boon to fraudsters in years past.

While it may or may not put a damper on the amount of information stolen the move needs to be undertaken on a regular basis. Identity theft at the present time is not going anywhere. It remains the number one complaint by consumers. However it is not all gloom and doom. Statistics reveal that it's declining. People also feel that financial institutions are doing a better job of monitoring it than ever before.

The mistake too many folks make however is believing that these same institutions will automatically protect you against the threat as well as fix it instantly if anything should occur. It still unfortunately takes a great deal of time to work through the process of restoring your credit report. Factor in that in too many instances the identity thief never gets caught. You put out one fire and another one is waiting around the corner.

This is why it is crucial that you take a proactive process to guard against identity theft.

1. Be Aware Of Who Is Actually Around You

The majority of identity theft still happens offline. An overheard phone call where you are providing sensitive information or perhaps you are at one of those online cafe's and somebody is intently watching what you do. This does not mean you must be paranoid to the point you never venture out of the house. But you should have a strong sense of what is going on within your immediate environment.

2. Family Oriented

This may be the epitome of being mindful of who is around you. The vast majority of identity theft comes about when the victim knows the person who did it. Relatives head the list as the worst offenders followed by close friends, co workers and neighbors. For one they make a calculated guess that your suspicions will never point towards them and for another even if you do catch them they figure the chances are you will not press the issue. In other words you may get upset but there is no way you will call the police and have them arrested. On this they are counting on.

It is perfectly understandable that you would hesitate to go that route so make sure that the temptation is not there. Don't let anyone have access to your personal information. If someone comes to your house make sure anything of a sensitive nature is tucked away in a secure place.

To find out more about identity theft and fraud visit identity theft info

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