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Identity Theft Prevention, What and Why
Identity Theft Prevention, What and Why
Identity Theft Prevention, What and Why
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.
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.
3.1.1 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).
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).
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.
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.