LifeLock’s eReconTM Service Monitors Criminal Information Sharing Networks Globally to Protect Your Personal Data
The Internet provides the perfect medium for buying and selling identity theft-related information – a virtual “black market.” There are multiple illegal sites – some are similar to eBay – where identity thieves can buy, sell, rate each other and even leave feedback about transactions. The information traded may be as simple as account numbers and pin codes or as complex as whole identities, including social security numbers, bank account numbers with passwords and PIN codes, date of birth, security question answers.
Most people think of ruined credit when they hear the words “identity theft.” Identity theft can cause more than just credit problems. Victims of criminal identity theft can lose their job, home or even be locked up for crimes that were committed using their name and identification. Victims of medical identity theft can find themselves facing huge medical bills or even worse, receive incorrect care based on fraudulent medical records, possibly endangering their life or health. (more…)
Somewhere there’s an American citizen—we’ll call him Joe Smith–with a criminal record showing a 2002 federal narcotics conviction. In March, he was arrested as he tried to return to the United States from Mexico. That’s when Customs and Border Patrol officers discovered his tourist visa had been revoked, and there was an outstanding arrest warrant for violating the terms of his supervised release after serving prison time for a 2002 federal narcotics case. 