Identity Theft Prevention, What and Why

By Foo Eik Mei

Abstract

Identity theft is a prolific issue in todays environment. People are lack of awareness on the
seriousness of identity theft and cause their personal information such as name, photos,
credit card number and password being misused by attackers. The attacker will use the
victims personal information to get their long terms benefits. The purpose of this writing is to
discuss the identity theft and the way of prevention on this issue. In this paper, it will discuss
about the prevention on identity theft. It will explain the importance of prevention on identity
theft, the prevention method and analyse the topic with the ethical theory. The preventing of
identity theft cannot be done by only one party. Alone we can do so little, together we can do
so much. Thus, individuals and organizations should work together in preventing the
proliferation on identity theft.

1. Introduction

Identity theft is defined as intentionally obtains key pieces of personal identifying information
and uses them for their personal benefit. That is, if someone, also known as identity thief
takes anothers personal information without permission and uses it in illegal way (Dean, et
al., 2014).

Identity theft has become a worriment in todays society. Millions of people every
year are affected both directly and indirectly (Dean, et al, 2014). Many individuals and
organizations have become the victims that are attacked using different techniques, physical
and technological (Hedayati, 2012). Physical techniques include several classical ways such
as mail theft and insider theft; technology-based techniques, for instance are phishing and
social engineering to steal personal information (Hegayati, 2012). Based on the result of
experiment by He, Chen, Su and Sun in their research paper which only involved Taiwans
citizen, they stated that social networking user tend to use the same email address across
several social networking sites such as Windows Live Messenger and Facebook which will
lead the identity thieves easily to obtain their personal information (2014). The ratio of the
same account among Email, Facebook and Windows Live Messenger is about 80:20 (He, et
al, 2014). Different types of frauds are the major aftermaths of identity theft that are
comprised identity fraud, financial fraud, tax fraud, medical fraud, resume fraud, mortgage
fraud, and organized crimes such as money laundering, terrorism and illegal immigration
(Hedayati, 2012). In addition, Hedayati also stated that identity theft costs consumers about
$50 billion annually and as the growing of identity theft in UK led the loss of 1.7 billion in the
British economy every year (2012).

The question that always pooped out is why the identity theft is happened. The
answer for this question are lack of political and economic stability in developing nations
significantly increases identity theft, especially in developed countries due to (Hedayati, 2012)
and carelessness or lack of attention on the part of consumer such as neglecting to protect
passwords, disposing of identity information in regular trash, failing to secure regular mail or
access to personal laptops, and responding to phishing attacks (Gilbert, et al, 2011). The
other answer is the increasing reliance on information technologies (Lai, et al, 2012). People
are placed lot of reliance on technology which leads to mounting attacks and increase in the
number of security incidents and damage (Lai, et al, 2012).
 My writing is organized as follows. I present the background of this writing and
purpose and method of writing. Next I discuss the finding and lastly conclude by discussing
the major findings and implications for the topic.

2. Purpose and Method of Writing

The purpose of this writing is to identity the prevention on identity theft, discuss the
prevention method and analyse the reason prevention is needed. In the same time to raise
awareness to the society on the danger of identity theft,

The data for this writing come from the reviewing on few articles about the prevention
on identity theft. Next, in this writing will be identified the important of prevention and
discussed the prevention that can be applied in the identity theft. Lastly, this writing will
include the discussion on why prevention is needed using Rule Utilitarianism (RU) ethical
theory.

3. Discussion of Finding

Several prevention methods are provided separately into two categories, individual and
organization.

3.1 Prevention Method

3.1.1 Individual

Many strategies are adopted in order to prevent identity theft. The most apparent
method would be not to disclose personal information since identity thieves are able to
steal personal information via the Internet, fax, regular mail, or telephone (Hedayati,
2012). An individual should not easily give out any sensitive information such as identity
card number and credit card number. They need to be aware if they receive a phone call
that sounds official and will need to reveal personal information to the person on the
other side of the phone who may be a thief (Dean, et al, 2014).

Another method of preventing identity theft is to demolish any documents

such as email which may consist of personal information that a thief can use it (Dean, et
al., 2014). Sometimes, thieves will rummage through a persons trash in order to find
some information which might be something useful as simple as a signing up on social
networking site or a credit card application. Thus, the strongly recommended way to
avoid this from happening is document shedding before discarding in trash bins
(Hedayati, 2012) and throwing large amount of the shredded documents at once (Dean,
et al., 2014). This is because throwing a large amount of shredded documents at one
will better mix the shredded pieces, which adds another level of security and able to
stop the chances of having a persons identity compromised (Dean, et al., 2014).

Furthermore, an individual should check the credit report periodically or at

least annually from banks, creditors or other financial institutions and report any
irregularities to the credit bureaus (Hedayati, 2012). There is no 100% guarantee
protection of individuals from identity theft offered by the services but it will add the level
of security for the potential victim. Another way to prevent identity theft is the practice of
using strong passwords is strongly recommended to people in online networks
(Hedayati, 2012). A good utilization of passwords is a necessity way to protect access to
information in todays environment (Dean, et al., 2014). A password can be more
 effective when it is a combination of alphabets, numbers, punctuation, and special
characters that is hard for the identity thieves to access the personal information easily.

3.1.2 Organization

Organizations and businesses need to have a strategic plan to prevent identity theft
since they are carrying peoples identities and private information in their databases.
Companies have big responsibility in protecting individuals information, so they need to
bolster their network security (Dean, et al., 2014). A secured network should be build up
in an organization no matter it is a small or big scale company; they should be protecting
the key information of their clients. If there is a security breach, the company needs to
inform any users and employees immediately in order for the affected individuals to
make the necessary changes to protect their accounts and information (Dean, et al.,
2014).

Another way in protecting from identity theft is installing reliable security

systems such as anti-virus, anti-Trojan and anti-spyware on all servers and workstations
that connect to corporate network (Hedayati, 2012). These security systems need to
update regularly as it will help in identifying, detecting, blocking and reporting suspicious
online activities that may be from identity thieves. Besides, the organizations and
companies need to shred all documents that contain identities and sensitive information
about individuals and business before disposing (Hedayati, 2012) as to increase the
security level. Prevention on identity theft also can be done by appointing person that
are know well on security system to be responsible for organization system. Although
the responsible person needs to well recognize security system, but it is important to be
an honest person.

3.2 Analysed the need of prevention on identity theft

In this writing, the workable ethical theory that suitable for this topic is Rule Utilitarianism
(RU). RU claims that an action is right if and only if it collates with rules which everybody
followed and would leads to the greatest happiness. Moreover, although this moral rule
aimed for greatest happiness but instead of it only considers actions individually in
relation to whether the happiness created, it more considers which party will bring
greatest happiness to the overall.

The moral rule is suitable in preventing of identity theft because it brings

greatest happiness to the society comparing with the action of identity thieves. The
prevention on identity theft is avoiding and protecting individuals and organizations from
continuing receive harm created by the identity thieves. By applying the protection,
people will be more secure in using technology and raise their awareness on the
existing of identity theft. The action from the identity thieves such as credit card fraud
and stealing personal information will only bring happiness for themselves whereas the
action that they had done will both directly and indirectly affected the economy and
citizens of the country, which it is creating huge impact and harms to the others and the
identity thief is bringing happiness for own self. Thus, Rule Utilitarianism is suitable to
explain the reason why prevention of identity theft is needed.

4.0 Conclusion
Identity theft is increasing across the world threatening people and organizations. Fraudsters
and thieves use various types of techniques to steal personal information and use it for their
own benefits. As mentioned before, the thieves use the physical and technology-based
techniques to do frauds such as credit card fraud and mortgage fraud, leads to the financially
loss and affect the social and economy of country. Defensive strategies to the individual and
organizations had been discuss to protect the sensitive information being stolen or use by
the identity thieves.

Individuals and organizations should regularly enhance their knowledge about how to
protect themselves from being the victims of identity theft. They should acknowledge on
todays major problem in order for them in preventing the identity theft. Although the
prevention do not give 100% guarantee on the termination of identity theft, but it will
maximize the security level on personal information being stolen.

Furthermore, people and organizations always neglecting the small matter such as
the credit card application and email contains sensitive information which lead to identity
theft increased drastically. People and organizations should pay more attention on
everything that is going on around them so that they will be noticed the different. This will
definitely helping in mitigate the issue. Thus, awareness is the best defence.

References

Dean, P. C., Buck, J., & Dean, P. (2014). Identity theft: A situation of worry. Journal of
Academic and Business Ethics, 9, 1.

Gilbert, J. A. (2014). Consumer Identity Theft Prevention And Identity Fraud Detection
Behaviours: An Application Of The Theories Of Planned Behaviour And Protection
Motivation.

He, B. Z., Chen, C. M., Su, Y. P., & Sun, H. M. (2014). A defence scheme against identity
theft attack based on multiple social networks. Expert Systems with Applications,
41(5), 2345-2352.

Hedayati, A. (2012). An analysis of identity theft: Motives, related frauds, techniques and
prevention. Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution, 4(1), 1-12.

Lai, F., Li, D., & Hsieh, C. T. (2012). Fighting identity theft: The coping perspective. Decision
Support Systems, 52(2), 353-363.