Combating Online Identity Theft
As if it isn’t enough to stay on top of all the ways one become a victim on the Internet, there is another problem arising in the web world. Identity theft is considered as fast-growing crime nowadays as it ruins credit ratings and steals from its victims. But there are other ways to steal from you without necessarily stealing your identity. Or at least not exactly.
In United States, identity theft is not an unusual issue anymore. In fact, several bureaus are already taking immediate actions in order to eradicate the problem although that is still somewhat difficult to accomplish. Identity theft has many aspects to consider. It also concerns several fields of thefts. There are so many ways in which you can become a victim of identity theft.
You probably already know that identity theft happens when your personal information, including your name, bank accounts and other posted information on the Internet are stolen by someone and used to commit a fraudulent act or other forms of crime. Most of the time the perpetrator just steals your money.
You’ve probably also heard of phishing, where theives construct authentic looking (at least at first glance) emails from known companies like credit card companies, banks, and even Paypal, that direct you to click a link and update some kind of information. If you do that, they get your information for their criminal purposes. Some web browser now warn you when you click on these suspicious links, but I wouldn’t count on that. Count on your own suspicions and use your own smarts. One clue that the email is fake is the domain that the email is sent from. It’s often a gibberish domain, and that’s a big fat stinking clue that the email is fake.
But there is an another, somewhat easy, way to execute identity theft. Online identity theft is executed through a process known as web spoofing.
It reproduces exactly the same domain name of a particular website, but primarily controlled by the identity thief. In other words, he has the authority to manipulate all the forms of business transaction that will pass through a certain website.
How does this web spoofing work? Three basic components help the thief perpetrate online identity theft. He or she has sole control of all the transactions going through that website.
1. Domain name. This serves as the primary identity of the website. Usually, domain names can be bought from several online sources for a minimal amount. A domain name consists of characters such as letter, dash and numbers. It will represent the name of the site. It also has an “extension” (known as a TLD) like .com or .net or something similar. There are many, many TLDs in existence.
2. Actual content. This is the second main component in order to publish a site. The very important factor to consider here is the HTML (the language that allows the web browser to present material to the viewer) and the streaming media, but the dirty work is done with a script.
3. Web Hosting. After executing all his plans with the online identity theft, this is now the last step the thief is going to do. On this part, the thief will not only claim the website but also the company’s principals and employees.
Online identity theft is a huge menace to the website owners. All of the profit that would go in their company can be stolen instantly. Even the potential clients subscribing to their sites can also be fooled by the thieves that will reproduce exactly the same website as yours. This is the key here: they’re producing an imposter web site and hijacking (redirecting) its users.
Most web hosts today offer hacking protection software and very secure servers, but these hackers do get in on occasion and they wreak havoc until they can be caught and prosecuted.
If you have a website, whether it is a personal vanity site, or a site for your business, always get your websites protected from online identity theft!
Category: Identity Theft