Imagine you’re a small business or an individual and someone creates a Facebook , Twitter or any other social media profile and uses your name, picture or logo. Next they start to post blogs and send out links as you. They may be contacting your clients to get them to join in social media or they simply show up in search. Either way their intention is fraudulent. Having a presence online of someone else allows a scammer unlimited possibilities to do wrong and they may never get caught.
Also, traditional phishing where scammers would send a fake email purportedly coming from a trusted entity aren’t as successful as they used to be. Identity thieves are taking advantage of free use of social media and building a home base on legitimate sites. Once established, they look as legitimate as any other fan page or Twitter account. There are few, if any checks and balances preventing this.
There are so many reasons why this kind of social media identity theft occurs.
They may be seeking steal your clients or potential clients away by posing as you, but gradually revealing themselves and do a quick switcheroo hoping to not get discovered.
They could be squatting on your name or brand hoping to profit off of it by selling it back to you or preventing you from using it.
They could be criminal hackers posting infected links with the intention anyone click on them and download a virus that infects your PC or network giving them back door access.
They may be intentionally posing as you, even blogging as you for the purposes of damaging your name or brand. Anything they say to the world that is libelous, defamatory or just plain wrong makes you look bad or can get you sued and you have to prove otherwise.
They may be posing as you to harass someone you know or your clients to further damage you.
They could be doing it simply to harass you to get back at you, seeking revenge because you slighted them or sold them a defective product or service.
They may pose as a name or brand that has leverage like a celebrity or Fortune 500 that can open doors for them. Get them places where they couldn’t get on their own, a form of social engineering.
Your brand may sell products or services and the identity thieves pose as you and offer deals with links to spoofed websites hoping to extract credit cards numbers.
They may pose as any government entity such as the IRS, Social Security Administration, Medicare or any other agency for the sole purpose of extracting data and committing new account fraud
They may be obsessed or desire you or your brand and simply want to have a piece of you or be recognized as you. They can actually be or act as you when they are responding to messages and queries from those who think the scammer is you. Just like a stalker who hunts down their prey, they can’t get enough of you and by posing as you it gives them a little satisfaction and the attention they crave.
They could be spoofing you, as in a parody of you or your brand. They may have created a “tongue and cheek” site that may be obvious, it might be funny, but more than likely it’s not funny to you.
They could be posing as you to elicit contact from others for the purposes of a relationship, sexual or otherwise either in person or virtually. A young man was recently caught posing as an attractive girl in his school on Facebook. He contacted guys in his class posing as her and requested naked photos of them. When he revealed who he was and what he would do with the photos-or else- he began to extort sex from them.
Social media is just a baby. All of the above stems from real world examples from research over the past few years. Unfortunately this list is going to keep growing. Varieties of fraud that can occur via social media is only up to the imagination of the thief. Submit your own findings. Lets hear what other whacked out other social media identity thieves are doing.
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Showing posts with label social media identity theft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media identity theft. Show all posts
October 14, 2009
More on social network identity theft
Interesting article about the reasons why identity thieves commit identity theft via social networking sites. The whole article can be found at http://www.bloggernews.net/122604.
September 30, 2009
Excellent article about protecting against identity theft via social networking sites
With the rapid proliferation of social networking sites such as FaceBook, MySpace and Twitter, the threat of identity thieves using these social networking sites to steal users' identities has greatly increased. What with phishing, viruses and links that lead unsuspecting clickers to bad things, social networking sites are a treasure trove for identity thieves. Employers need to be aware of the risk posed by social networking sites.
I read an excellent article today that provies 8 steps for employers to use to protect themselves and their employees. The article can be found here - http://www.bloggernews.net/122397.
I read an excellent article today that provies 8 steps for employers to use to protect themselves and their employees. The article can be found here - http://www.bloggernews.net/122397.
August 12, 2009
Identity theft as new form of domestic violence
"Today, there are increasing numbers of cases involving identity theft and domestic abuse. Domestic violence and stalking victims often fall prey to a form of identity theft which is often referred to by experts and prosecutors as identity theft as abuse, a subset of cyberstalking.
Identity Theft as Abuse is unique from traditional identity theft because instead of the intent and purpose being for financial gain, domestic abusers utilize these tactics in order to continue to have power and control over their victims.
Domestic violence abusers armed with their victims personal identifying information often apply for credit cards, magazine subscriptions, e-mail accounts, create web sites including myspace and facebook accounts and use the victims identifying information to reek havoc upon their lives-often causing damage to the victims credit and reputation both of which are very difficult to restore once they are lost.
Cases involving identity theft as abuse were often ignored by the courts and law enforcement until now; primarily thanks to the hard work of the prosecutors involved in the Peck case of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin court of appeals affirmed the conviction against Peck providing a new hope for victims of cyberstalking and in particular victims of identity theft as abuse - the majority of which are domestic violence and stalking victims."
I heard a story recently of someone whose identity thief opened a facebook page and made it look like it was the victim's page. The identity thief then posted derogatory and embarrassing information on the page in an attempt to place the victim in a bad light. This type of identity theft will only occur more and more until the social media sites (i.e. myspace, facebook, twitter, etc.) come up with some way to prevent the stealing of their members' identities.
Identity Theft as Abuse is unique from traditional identity theft because instead of the intent and purpose being for financial gain, domestic abusers utilize these tactics in order to continue to have power and control over their victims.
Domestic violence abusers armed with their victims personal identifying information often apply for credit cards, magazine subscriptions, e-mail accounts, create web sites including myspace and facebook accounts and use the victims identifying information to reek havoc upon their lives-often causing damage to the victims credit and reputation both of which are very difficult to restore once they are lost.
Cases involving identity theft as abuse were often ignored by the courts and law enforcement until now; primarily thanks to the hard work of the prosecutors involved in the Peck case of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin court of appeals affirmed the conviction against Peck providing a new hope for victims of cyberstalking and in particular victims of identity theft as abuse - the majority of which are domestic violence and stalking victims."
I heard a story recently of someone whose identity thief opened a facebook page and made it look like it was the victim's page. The identity thief then posted derogatory and embarrassing information on the page in an attempt to place the victim in a bad light. This type of identity theft will only occur more and more until the social media sites (i.e. myspace, facebook, twitter, etc.) come up with some way to prevent the stealing of their members' identities.
July 09, 2009
Social networking site www.tagged.com accused of identity theft
New identity theft news - Watch out for this social networking site. Below is a quote from Herb Weisbaum's article on http://www.komonews.com/:
"If prosecutors are right, this could be a major case of identity theft. The social networking site Tagged.com is being investigated by prosecutors in New York. The allegation: it stole personal information from unsuspecting users, as well as people who never visited the site.
When TIME Magazine reporter Sean Gregory got an e-mail from a friend, saying she'd posted photos on Tagged.com, he logged on to see them.But there were no pictures. Gregory says it was a ruse designed to steal his online address book. 'As soon as I clicked it, I got these emails from my wife and best friend saying, 'What the heck is this? Should i touch this? It made me so angry I wrote about it,' he said.
The New York Attorney General's Office says Gregory was one of 60 million people allegedly duped by tagged. The allegations involve a practice called "contact scraping," and security experts say it's a growing, invasive form of identity theft. Investigators say a Web site uses one person's e-mail address to lure his friends and associates into giving up their personal contacts.
'It's like breaking into someone's home, stealing their address book and sending letters to all of their friends and other contacts and loved ones and pretending to be them,' said Benjamin Lawsky, special assistant to the New York Attorney General's Office.
Contacted by ABC News, Tagged.com issued a statement apologizing for any problems. The company says it is cooperating with the investigators. The New York Times reports it has received similar complaints from people who use other social networking sites."
The whole article is here - http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/50411002.html. I think my wife, who is very internet savvy, may have even been duped by this one. She mentioned something like this to me the other day about getting an e-mail from a friend who said she had tagged my wife in a pic but, when my wife logged on, there were no pics. I'll ask my wife about this and post more about it later.
"If prosecutors are right, this could be a major case of identity theft. The social networking site Tagged.com is being investigated by prosecutors in New York. The allegation: it stole personal information from unsuspecting users, as well as people who never visited the site.
When TIME Magazine reporter Sean Gregory got an e-mail from a friend, saying she'd posted photos on Tagged.com, he logged on to see them.But there were no pictures. Gregory says it was a ruse designed to steal his online address book. 'As soon as I clicked it, I got these emails from my wife and best friend saying, 'What the heck is this? Should i touch this? It made me so angry I wrote about it,' he said.
The New York Attorney General's Office says Gregory was one of 60 million people allegedly duped by tagged. The allegations involve a practice called "contact scraping," and security experts say it's a growing, invasive form of identity theft. Investigators say a Web site uses one person's e-mail address to lure his friends and associates into giving up their personal contacts.
'It's like breaking into someone's home, stealing their address book and sending letters to all of their friends and other contacts and loved ones and pretending to be them,' said Benjamin Lawsky, special assistant to the New York Attorney General's Office.
Contacted by ABC News, Tagged.com issued a statement apologizing for any problems. The company says it is cooperating with the investigators. The New York Times reports it has received similar complaints from people who use other social networking sites."
The whole article is here - http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/50411002.html. I think my wife, who is very internet savvy, may have even been duped by this one. She mentioned something like this to me the other day about getting an e-mail from a friend who said she had tagged my wife in a pic but, when my wife logged on, there were no pics. I'll ask my wife about this and post more about it later.
June 23, 2009
Social Media Identity Theft - a new form of identity theft?
Below is an excellent article written by Robert Siciliano at The Huffington Post about a possible new form of identity theft, where someone uses your name and photo on a social website such as Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. Since it is such an informative article, I have reprinted the entire article below:
"Unfortunately, we live in a world that forces us to be cautious about when and how we give out our personal information. Citibank's funny but true commercials say it all: the scourge of identity theft knows no boundaries. It can happen to anyone by anyone: rich, poor, good credit, bad credit. Victims include children, the elderly, celebrities and politicians, even the dead. Identity theft may include new account fraud, account takeover, criminal identity theft, business identity theft and medical identity theft. Most of these result in financial loss.
As an industry leader we have to be on the frontlines of emerging consumer trends and challenges so we can develop solutions. One of the latest forms of identity theft that is particularly damaging to the victim's reputation and becoming more prevalent is social media identity theft. Social media identity thieves have various motivations. The most damaging type of social media ID theft occurs when someone poses as you in order to disrupt your life. This disruption can take on many forms. They may harass and stalk you or your contacts, or they may steal your online identity for financial gain.
The New York Times reports on Facebook's recent offering of customized Web addresses like facebook.com/RobertSiciliano. On the first day of Facebook's offering, 9.5 million people rushed to grab their name. And as predicted, there are a lot of people upset that their own name is gone, in some cases it is simply due to people sharing the same name, but increasingly we're seeing cases where social media identity theft occurred.
In the case of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, someone created a Twitter account in his name. La Russa is suing Twitter, claiming the impostor Twitter page damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress. The lawsuit includes a screen shot of three tweets. One, posted on April 19, read, "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher." Apparently, La Russa has had a drunk driving arrest and two Cardinals pitchers have died since 2002. One pitcher died of a heart attack, the other in a drunk driving accident.
There is no limit to the damage someone can do by using your name and picture in order to impersonate you online. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an 18-year-old student was accused of posing as a girl on Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves, and then blackmailing some of these young men for sex acts.
Social media websites were created with the intention of bringing people together in a positive way, but we are beginning to see these sites being used in very sinister ways. The root of the problem is the fact that social media sites are all based on the honor system, with the assumption that people are honestly setting up accounts in their own names. There are few checks and balances in the world of social media, which means that you need to adopt a strategy to protect yourself.
There are hundreds or even thousands of social media sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. Even your local newspaper's website has a place for user comments, and most people would prefer to register their own names before someone else has done so on their behalf.
As we spend more time online, meeting people, posting photos and offering glimpses into our personal lives, here are some action steps to keep Social Media Identity Theft at bay:
1. Register your full name and those of your spouse and kids on the most trafficked social media sites, blogs, domains or web based email accounts. If your name is already gone, include your middle initial, a period or a hyphen. It's up to you to decide whether or not to plug in your picture and basic bio, but consider leaving out your age or birthday.
2. Set up a free Google Alerts for your name and get an email every time your name pops up online. Go to iSearch.com by Intelius and search your name and any variations of your name in what would be a screen name.
3. Set up a free StepRep account for your name. StepRep is an online reputation manager that does a better job than Google Alerts does of fetching your name on the web.
4. Consider dropping a few bucks on Knowem.com and other sites like them. These online portals go out and register your name at what they consider the top social media sites. Their top is a great start. The user experience is relatively painless. There is still labor involved in setting things up with some of them. And no matter what you do, you will still find it difficult to complete the registration with all the sites. Some of the social media sites just aren't agreeable. This can save you lots of time, but is only one part of solving the social media identity theft problem.
5. Start doing things online to boost your online reputation. Blogging is best. You want Google to bring your given name to the top of search in its best light, so when anyone is searching for you they see good things. This is a combination of online reputation management and search engine optimization for your brand: YOU.
6. If you ever stumble upon someone using your likeness in the social media, be very persistent in contacting the site's administrators. They too have reputations to manage and if they see someone using your photo or likeness they would be smart to delete the stolen profile.
7. Despite all the work you may do to protect yourself, you still need the Intelius Identity Protect service I'm working with and recommend coupled with Internet security software."
Like I said, a very informative article. Thank you, Robert Siciliano, for this advice.
"Unfortunately, we live in a world that forces us to be cautious about when and how we give out our personal information. Citibank's funny but true commercials say it all: the scourge of identity theft knows no boundaries. It can happen to anyone by anyone: rich, poor, good credit, bad credit. Victims include children, the elderly, celebrities and politicians, even the dead. Identity theft may include new account fraud, account takeover, criminal identity theft, business identity theft and medical identity theft. Most of these result in financial loss.
As an industry leader we have to be on the frontlines of emerging consumer trends and challenges so we can develop solutions. One of the latest forms of identity theft that is particularly damaging to the victim's reputation and becoming more prevalent is social media identity theft. Social media identity thieves have various motivations. The most damaging type of social media ID theft occurs when someone poses as you in order to disrupt your life. This disruption can take on many forms. They may harass and stalk you or your contacts, or they may steal your online identity for financial gain.
The New York Times reports on Facebook's recent offering of customized Web addresses like facebook.com/RobertSiciliano. On the first day of Facebook's offering, 9.5 million people rushed to grab their name. And as predicted, there are a lot of people upset that their own name is gone, in some cases it is simply due to people sharing the same name, but increasingly we're seeing cases where social media identity theft occurred.
In the case of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, someone created a Twitter account in his name. La Russa is suing Twitter, claiming the impostor Twitter page damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress. The lawsuit includes a screen shot of three tweets. One, posted on April 19, read, "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher." Apparently, La Russa has had a drunk driving arrest and two Cardinals pitchers have died since 2002. One pitcher died of a heart attack, the other in a drunk driving accident.
There is no limit to the damage someone can do by using your name and picture in order to impersonate you online. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an 18-year-old student was accused of posing as a girl on Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves, and then blackmailing some of these young men for sex acts.
Social media websites were created with the intention of bringing people together in a positive way, but we are beginning to see these sites being used in very sinister ways. The root of the problem is the fact that social media sites are all based on the honor system, with the assumption that people are honestly setting up accounts in their own names. There are few checks and balances in the world of social media, which means that you need to adopt a strategy to protect yourself.
There are hundreds or even thousands of social media sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. Even your local newspaper's website has a place for user comments, and most people would prefer to register their own names before someone else has done so on their behalf.
As we spend more time online, meeting people, posting photos and offering glimpses into our personal lives, here are some action steps to keep Social Media Identity Theft at bay:
1. Register your full name and those of your spouse and kids on the most trafficked social media sites, blogs, domains or web based email accounts. If your name is already gone, include your middle initial, a period or a hyphen. It's up to you to decide whether or not to plug in your picture and basic bio, but consider leaving out your age or birthday.
2. Set up a free Google Alerts for your name and get an email every time your name pops up online. Go to iSearch.com by Intelius and search your name and any variations of your name in what would be a screen name.
3. Set up a free StepRep account for your name. StepRep is an online reputation manager that does a better job than Google Alerts does of fetching your name on the web.
4. Consider dropping a few bucks on Knowem.com and other sites like them. These online portals go out and register your name at what they consider the top social media sites. Their top is a great start. The user experience is relatively painless. There is still labor involved in setting things up with some of them. And no matter what you do, you will still find it difficult to complete the registration with all the sites. Some of the social media sites just aren't agreeable. This can save you lots of time, but is only one part of solving the social media identity theft problem.
5. Start doing things online to boost your online reputation. Blogging is best. You want Google to bring your given name to the top of search in its best light, so when anyone is searching for you they see good things. This is a combination of online reputation management and search engine optimization for your brand: YOU.
6. If you ever stumble upon someone using your likeness in the social media, be very persistent in contacting the site's administrators. They too have reputations to manage and if they see someone using your photo or likeness they would be smart to delete the stolen profile.
7. Despite all the work you may do to protect yourself, you still need the Intelius Identity Protect service I'm working with and recommend coupled with Internet security software."
Like I said, a very informative article. Thank you, Robert Siciliano, for this advice.
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