According to surveys, the restaurant is the most likely place to lose a credit card. One of the major credit card companies determined that forty percent and that’s right 40% of credit card theft happens to dining locations more than any type of establishments. This is because people are pre-occupied with eating and talking. It gives thieves a chance not only to steal their belongings but their credit card receipt as well.

We cannot say that waiters and gourmet chefs are to blame because they can easily copy your personal information, although it is possible. It is important to consider the technology available as well as the most convenient way to steal is through it. The theft happens when a particular hacker goes right into the system of the restaurant and downloads the information about the credit card.

It is not really known why restaurants are the most targeted place for credit card theft, but the theory is that it goes around the weakness of the security of the place. What actually happens during the hacking is that when the credit card is swiped for payment, the data is retrieved by unscrupulous individuals. All of the necessary data including the account number, verification code and the expiration date are given out.

After knowing the cause of the problem, credit card companies will impose fines on the restaurants if they are proven to carelessly store data in their stores. Improper storing of data will be the ground for imposing fines that can amount to ,000 per month. Credit cards are considered as one of the factors that makes establishments ‘survive.’ The advice would be to check your account regularly so that you can report the theft in the shortest possible time. If it‘s possible, pay cash for the meals that you eat.

MPA SHUMAILA RANA PURCHASING ON STOLEN CREDIT CARD
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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Many fail to realize that their credit card accounts are very much a component of their portfolio. A component that has the potential of carrying incredible amounts of risk. As the Associated Press reported today, the federal government has just charged Albert Gonzales “with the largest case of credit and debit card data theft ever in the United States.” Gonzales already had charges pending against him for another credit-card theft case. If you combine all the charges together, Gonzales is, in sum, reported to have stolen over 170 Million credit and debit card numbers from the computer systems of:

7-Eleven
Hannaford Brothers Co.
Heartland Payment Systems
Dave and Busters
T.J. Maxx
Barnes and Noble
Sport Authority
&
OfficeMax

Yes, that’s right: 170 Million card numbers. The Experian Marketing Insight Snapshot reports that in the 4th quarter of 2008, the average American consumer had 5.4 cards. The census bureau projects that by 2010, 181 Million Americans will have at least one credit card. It’s impossible to know exactly how probable it is that your Credit/Debit card has been stolen, but, when 170 Million are stolen in one case alone, you have to consider it a possibility.

So, what can the average investor do to protect themselves from this type of theft? Unfortunately, not much. In these cases, the cards are being stolen from the mainframes of businesses, not from your trashcan, recycling bin, email, or pocketbook. If you own credit or debit cards, you are taking the risk that the card numbers will be stolen. The only way to protect yourself is to only use credit cards and checking accounts that provide 100% forgiveness of fraudulent transactions. Many companies offer this, but some don’t. A few companies only offer fraud protection as a subscription. Others only offer it on certain cards. It behooves you to read your credit card contract carefully. If you can’t find your documentation, call your company and request more, but also ask the representative if you’re protected.

Remember however, that, in the Gonzales case, debit cards were stolen as well. You need your checking account to be protected just as much as your credit card accounts. It’s not only important that the bank/company forgive fraudulent charges; it is important how quickly they do so. With some banks, you could lose your checking account balance for weeks if your card number is stolen. They will make you fill out form after form and will take their time to process each one. Other companies will assume that you’re telling the truth and will credit your account for the charges immediately then investigate the matter on their own . When you contact your bank/credit card company, make sure you ask them about the specifics of the process you must endure to retrieve your funds if your card number is stolen.

If your card company doesn’t protect you, then you should seriously consider whether the potential risk of owning that card is worth the reward.

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Article by Tim Parker

With increasing frequency and intensity it’s happening and your credit is at risk. The attacks are getting more and more sophisticated and the thieves are becoming more widespread. They are working hard to stay a step ahead of law enforcement and they are largely successful. Your money, your credit, and your identity are at risk of being compromised by online credit card theft.

Did you know that more than 15 million people per year are victims of identity theft? Did you know that it takes an average of 600 hours of work for you to recover from identity theft? Did you know that online credit card theft costs our nation 500 million per year?

It’s clear that your identity and credit are at risk and the only way to protect it is to take actions on your own part. Here are five ways that will help you not fall victim to online credit card theft:

Only buy from companies with an actual mailing address- Websites come and go all the time and because of that, it is very easy for a scam to be executed and your money stolen and the website shut down very quickly. Businesses that sell merchandise have addresses. You should also verify this address.

Enter your credit card number in to secure websites only- Secure websites always start with HTTPS rather than HTTP. Your internet browser will also have a picture of a lock or some other graphic that will show you that you are in a secure environment.

Say no to work at home schemes- A lot of people are looking for work at home, get rich quick schemes and they are willing to give their credit card number to anybody promising quick riches. Online credit card theft often happens on the websites of thieves playing to the emotions of the average person.

Don’t give your credit card information as a response to an e-mail. No company will ask you to provide your credit card number through an e-mail. If a company e-mails you pointing you to a website to pay for something and it could be legitimate, don’t click on the link. Instead, go to the website and log in to your account.

Get an online identity theft prevention service. Online credit card theft can be prevented by paying a small monthly fee for identity monitoring. A company that you know and trust like Equifax is the perfect place to get this service.

The thieves are going to keep attacking and you may be next. At the very least, an attack would be less than convenient. At worst, it may wipe out your child’s college savings that you have contributed to for years or your retirement money. It’s easy to prevent by enrolling in a protection service like Equifax.

About the Author

Tim is the author of the blog, elementary-finance.com

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Why you need to Uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance?

Are you feeling frustrated by finding the answer of how to uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance? Due to its high- engineered and good quality detection technology, McAfee Email Security Appliance has become one of the most popular virus removal tools. It is designed to provide you with absolutely reliable, efficient and professional methods to safely and quickly scan and remove viruses and spyware from your PC, forcibly keep spyware and viruses at bay, and effectively stop unsolicited and virus-infected emails from spreading across various systems. Although McAfee Email Security Appliance is quite beneficial for your PC, due to certain reasons, you may want to uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance from your system.

How to Uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance in Windows XP operating system?

To uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance from your Windows XP operating system, perform the following steps:

Run the Start menu, and then go to Control Panel.
In the Control Panel, double-click on the Add or Remove Programs.
Scroll through the list displayed in the Add or Remove Programs box and select one of the Symantec, Norton, or Live Update options listed.
Select the Remove or Change/Remove button to start the uninstall process.
Repeat the process for related entries included in the list.
Exit the Add or Remove Programs option and restart your computer if it does not restart automatically.
Search for and remove all Symantec and Norton folders from your system.

How to Uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance with Only One Click?

Due to the fact that the technology of McAfee Email Security Appliance is so complicated, to remove McAfee Email Security Appliance directly from the system is not an easy task. Even if you are a computer professional, to clean the leftovers of the removal process of McAfee Email Security Appliance proves to be very dangerous. If you want to uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance within few clicks, I highly recommend you to install the best uninstall tool to safely and easily uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance.

A great program that does this is called the Perfect Uninstaller. Why don’t you take a look at how it works? Visit: Uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance.

Do you want to successfully remove the McAfee Email Security Appliance from your computer? Visit: Uninstall McAfee Email Security Appliance.

www.privacynow.tv You may not realize this, but unless you bought your own email server hardware and software, and built and host your own infrastructure, you do not actually own your email. You are simply renting it from the provider, be it commercial or free. There is nothing physically stopping your provider from being able to access your data and you would never know it happened. What does this mean? You have zero control over how well your email is secured, or when, how and by whom your data is accessed. This week we show all the ways your email is vulnerable and give you some tips to protect yourself.
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Article by Jaya Venkat

SAFENTRIX.com, 19th November 2010 – with everything going the e way with the advent of the World Wide Web, email security solution has become a crucial thing to protect vulnerable and imperative data from unauthorized usage. Some of the Email Security Solutions are Email Spam Protection, Outbound Email Security, etc. In such milieus, one name that stands out from the horde due to its sheer resourcefulness is SAFENTRIX. SAFENTRIX is a hosted Free Email security solution that keeps SPAM, Virus and Malware off your Network, while ensuring that genuine emails can always reach the user by furnishing efficient Email Security Service.

Irrespective of the reality that Whether you are a small organization or have tens of thousands of employees, you will find SAFENTRIX proffering best in class services pertaining to Email security at a price that can be described in only one word ‘matchless’. You will also be amazed at the pre-eminence of Email Spam Filtering and Email Spam protection that you get to lay your hands on. The amount of wealth you will save on email bandwidth costs with SAFENTRIX is just unsurpassable.

It also prides in furnishing 99% + spam protection and 100% virus protection to the users of its Free Email security solution. Essentially SAFENTRIX’s services pertaining to Email Security Solutions can be procured in two flavors namely: – standard service and the Enterprise service. The standard service is free and is compatible with (hold your breath) up to twenty thousand number of users. On the contrary the Enterprise service comes with a 100% Service Level Agreement warranty and complies with guidelines laid down by HIPAA and the GLB.

It will also astound you to great lengths to realize that SAFENTRIX has Near Zero False positives and Zero hour protection and protects your organization from Malware and Phishing emails by making use of seven different layers of SPAM protection. It will also come to you as a surprise that there is no expiry date associated with these services which straight forwardly implies that there are no renewal dates to commit to memory.

“We at SAFENTRIX proffer you efficient email spam stop and our redundant backend infrastructure ensures ability to scale quickly. We are pledged to furnish you with the most excellent email security solutions at the most competitive prices. The ease with which one can set up our email security solution can be actually astonishing as it includes only three clear cut steps.” Says (Shrikrishnan), a SAFENTRIX spokesperson. For more information please visit: – http://www.safentrix.com/

About the Author

Until very few years ago Email Spam Protection software used heuristic methods to determine if a mail was a spam or nor based on a plethora of characteristics.

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Email Security Tips

In this article on email security tips, we will take a look at the different ways in which you can make the most of your email without compromising on security. We will also check out some of the best practices for email security

In today’s world, everything is dependent on computers and internet. We all rely on computers and internet technology to such a extent that we often have to send our most personal information through emails. But emails are not 100% secure and there are many risks involved. We have heard of stories about credit card numbers being stolen, email accounts being hacked and personal data being altered, computer viruses erasing the entire system etc. The best defense against all these is in being aware. Let us take a look at some email security tips, which if followed can minimize the chances of someone hacking your emails accounts.

Email Security Best Practices

Create a Strong Password
One of the first tip to protect your emails account from hackers is to create a strong password and keeping it confidential. Viruses and worms have the capability of guessing weak passwords . Also to memorize them, we often create passwords based on our names, date of births etc. which makes your email account more vulnerable. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team advises people to use mnemonics, that is, instead of a password like ‘michaelsmith’ you can create your password as MNIMS which stands for ‘my name is michael smith’. Mnemonics generated passwords are stronger and less vulnerable to be hacked. You can read more on commonly used passwords and stay away from them.

Identify Phishing Emails
The college of New Jersey explains that phishing is a scam where a hacker sends out emails that look legitimate and like they’re from established nationally recognized companies, to try to steal your information and possibly your email passwords. Mails asking to update your bank accounts, passwords are some of the common examples. These mails are not legitimate, but are made to resemble one by employing social engineering techniques. Now the question is how would you identify phishing emails? A phishing email commonly uses the following words, ‘verify your account’, ‘you have won a lottery’, ‘if you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed’ etc. Whenever you find such emails in your inbox, don’t reply immediately and instead verify with the bank/company if they have sent that mail.

Secure your Computer
Update your anti-virus and anti-spyware software. You may think that your computer is protected as you have installed an anti-virus software, but hackers think about how to break your security gate all the time. Once they find a loop-hole in your computer’s security, they modify the viruses accordingly. The solution is to update your security software so that you are always one step ahead of them. Apart from this, you should always update your email security settings. For more information, read firewall settings.

Be Cautious While Opening Attachments
One of the most common ways of sending emails is by email attachments. Whenever you open an attachment, check for the URL. Be cautious even if the attachment is being sent by someone you know as many viruses can ‘spoof’ the return addresses. Also turn off the option of automatically downloading attachments.

Follow the Basic Safety Measures
Try using your email account at secure locations and remember to logout whenever accessing it from a shared computer. Change your passwords frequently and be aware of the latest happenings with regard to viruses, email scams, email security policy etc.

Microsoft Office Word (*.doc) document which is widely-spread used by Office employee, has a feature allows users to password protect, encrypt and lock a *.doc files in order to prevent unauthorized users from opening or modifying your MS word documents. It is important to done the password protection and encryption if your word document contains sensitive information.

Before protecting your Word 2003 document, here are several suggestions you have to note:

1.       Before set a password on your document, you had better to consider writing down the password and keep it secure. That way, if you lose or forgot the Word password, it will be easier to recover the password.

2.       Word document has two types of password. One is “password to open” and the other one is “password to modify”. You can use either one to password-protect your document.

3.       Microsoft Word document supports numerous encryption types. There are “base”, “enhanced” and “strong” varieties. However, password protecting a word document does not 100% guarantee that the password cannot be decrypted or be hacked. Whatever you forgot word password or someone else hack the password. You can learn how to recover Word password from SmartKey official site.

Now, follow this tutorial to password protect MS word 2003 document.

Step 1: Open document you hope to password protect and encrypt.

Step 2: Point to the Tools options menu, then click “Options…”

Step 3: When the “Options” multi-tabbed dialog box appears, Click on the “Security” tab,

Step 4: Choose the password protect type

Password to open: if you want users to enter a password before they can view the content, type a password here.

Password to modify: if you want users to enter a password before they can save changes to the word document, type a password here.

Both passwords: You can also assign both passwords, one to access the document and one to allow specific users permission to modify its  content.

If you wish to use a different encryption settings type, click Advanced, choose an encryption setting type you want in the list, and then click OK. And you can also specify the number of characters in the Choose a key length box.

Step 5: Implement a password to protect your word document and confirm the password.

Step 6: After password protecting word document, Click Save. All the steps are finished.

TIPS:

All the original articles are authorized by SmartKey, welcome To Transshipment but Please Retain the original.

If you are interesting in Word Password Recovery, please visit our website.

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Along with the far-ranging use of computers, we prefer to store most our serviceable data in our laptop rather than notebook. Thus, Laptop password security awareness is attached to an important position. What actions should we take to reset the lost password? Will we recollect or clear up all the data again? Impossible!

According to online survey, the statistics data reached up to 66.67％ that laptop users have not yet protected laptop password. Is your PC password protected? If not, here we will recommend two hackneyed methods: creating BIOS passwords and Windows passwords.

Table of Contents :

Part one: Protect your laptop with BIOS Passwords
Part two: Protect your laptop with Windows Password

Part one: Protect your laptop with BIOS Passwords

1. What is BIOS Password?

BIOS Password is the extremely strong password that locks up the hardware and makes the laptop completely unusable. Only logging with the password can you enter into the operating system.

2. How to create a BIOS password?

Step 1: Restart laptop, and press F2 continuously to the following interface.

Step 2: Select the Security with cursor and choose Set User password or Set User Password.

Note:
Difference between Set User Password and Set Supervisor Password:
User Password controls access to the system at boot;
Supervisor Password controls access to the setup utility.

Step 3: Press the Enter, and fill the three blanks with your password.

Step 4: Press Enter and pop up Setup Notice, which means that you have reset BIOS password.

Step 5: Press F10 to save it and select Yes to exit, your laptop will logon automatically.

It is no doubt that creating a BIOS password is important to us. However, we will confront with much trouble if we forgot BIOS password. Thus, BIOS password reset seems as significant as creating a BIOS password.

3. How to reset BIOS password?

Method One: Using Standard BIOS Backdoor Passwords to reset BIOS password

A backdoor is one of the best way to protect BIOS password which is provided for users to access the BIOS when the hardware is being maintained.

Tip: Some type of backdoor passwords will work in vain when entering wrong password for more than three times.

Here are some well-known backdoor passwords:

AMI Backdoor BIOS Passwords: including A.M.I., AAAMMMIII, PASSWORD and so on.
Phoenix Backdoor BIOS Passwords: such as BIOS, CMOS, PHOENIX.
Award Backdoor BIOS Passwords: including ALLY, pint, SKY_FOX, 598598 and so on.

Method Two: Using software to reset BIOS password

This program -CMOSpwd works only when you have accessed to your PC and run software (means that you haven’t yet set an administrator password.)

Part two: Protect your laptop with Windows Password

As we all know, it is a popular and convenient way to protect laptop with creating Windows password regardless of individuals or communities.

1. What is Windows Password?

Windows Password is the confirmation code that a PC user requesting access to the Windows system is really that particular user.

2. How to protect your laptop with a Windows password?

Generally, we would like to create an administrator password with which the owner can log on to the Windows system. And then you can create a Windows password reset disk.

With a few long and complicated passwords, is it an easy thing to remember? Or in case we lost the reset disk? What should we do?

3. How to reset Windows password?

Now, we’d commend you a professional Windows password reset software— Windows Password Unlocker as your reference.

Windows password Unlocker is usableness to reset Windows password securely and speedy, which provides an ISO image burned by a blank or erasable CD/DVD. Keep easy-going and follow us with the step-by-step guide.

Notes:

1. If you choose a CD/DVD as the device, take CD-ROM Drive as first when boot in BIOS settings.
2. Please reset BIOS settings or pop out of the boot device after completing Windows password reset, otherwise the removal process appears again when restart.
Step 1: Download Windows Password Unlocker
Step 2: Open BurnCCDD, and load ISO image file into the full path with Browse.
Step 3: Burn the image file into a blank or erasable CD/DVD, USB Flash drive or Floppy disk.
Step 4: BIOS settings.
Step 5: Reset Windows password.

With the step-by-step guide, you’ll catch sight of the whole process of operating  Windows password reset.

With the two of well-known methods of protecting your laptop provided above, have you mastered? By the way, create a BIOS Password to protect your laptop is more suitable for professionals who are proficient in PC technique. While create a Windows Password is a universal and easy way to operate even for a tyro. We hope the guides can be serviceable for you.

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Article by Michelle

Recently I wrote an article about how to password protect Microsoft Office Excel 2003. After reading my article, many users wondered as they could recover a protected excel 2003 file as they lost or forgot the excel password. I felt it necessary to write this How-To article for recovering a protected password in Excel 2003.

Protecting an excel file is no strange for us and it is useful if we share a computer with family, friends or colleagues and have to keep our data away form prying eye. If you have forgotten your protected Excel document password, then you must have a sinking face.

If you urgently need access to the restricted excel data, then you probably have tried brute-force password hacking. That is to say: you have basically tried to guess what the code is and test different guess for the password until one succeeds. However, this may literally take thousands of years if you have used a complex password, sounds like it is impossible to recover the Excel password, but that does not necessarily mean that you have completely lost access to the password-protected Excel forever. Everything will be convenient if you do this job by a brute-force password recovery tool.

Excel Password Recovery 5.0 will allow you to decrypt the password protected Excel file and salvage the data form it. This program is use to get instant access to password protected Excel document created in MS excel 97/2000/2003/2007/2010. And it provides three password attack modes to enhance its performance to crack the password they are brute-force attack, brute-force with mask attack and dictionary attack. Before recover a password protected Excel file, you should understand how did this three attacks work.

Brute-force Attack: This attack mode will try all possible combinations until get the matched password and recover it. However, if the password is long and complex, it will do a long time of guess tests. So only using a small and simple will I recommend you to choose this mode.

Brute-force with Mask Attack: If still remember part of you password, I’ll recommend you to select this attack mode, For example, if you remember your password is 6 characters and the first letter is “a”, then you can define the mask as “a??????”. It will reduce the time of guess tests. But the premise is a password mask must be defined, or you will never recover the password.

Dictionary Attack: I highly recommend you to choose this attack mode, but you may feel strange about “Dictionary”. Then what is a dictionary, it is a text file, which can be simply regard as a library listing the password elements. If the password is frequently used, you can provide a dictionary file by listing your character sets to let the program base on when seeking the password, such as your name, birthday, pet name etc. If so, it’ll save your time to recover the password.

So, just follow the simple step by step process below to easily recover excel password.

Step 1: Download and install Excel Password Recovery program. Point your browser to http://www.recoverlostpassword.com/products/excelpasswordrecovery.html

Step 2: Run the program, click on “Open”. Select the password-protected Excel file that you want to decrypt

Step 3: Select the type of password attack which you think is the best way to unlock a Excel password.

Step 4: Setting for the password attack mode what you choose.

Step 5: Click “Start” to begin the attack. How long it takes is depend on the password length and complexity. When the password attack is successful, a window will pop up and show you the opening password in “File Opening Password”.

Related Source: how to recover excel password?

About the Author

Michelle is a computer enthusiast and have done a fair amount of research in the field of password recovery tool. you may find more password recovery solution from her blog:http://www.blog.recoverlostpassword.com

The latest official identity theft statistics are out and they are disturbing, alarming and frightening. Most people usually wait until something happens to them before taking action. This is usually the case all over the United States when it comes to victims of this crime. By taking a proactive stance and the defensive position on a crime like ID theft, you limit the thieves from ever being able to rob you of your identity as well as protect yourself from any future attempts. It is always best to be prepared for the storm rather than to wait until it hits to find shelter. Here are some of the most recent statistics on this ever growing and popular crime.

Victims

In 2008 there were about 10 million victims who fell prey to identity theft in the United States. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
It is estimated that 1 out of every 10 American has already been a victim of ID theft someway or another.
1.6 million Families went through bank account fraud or had their debit cards breached and exposed. These were NOT related to credit cards. (U.S. Department of Justice 2005)
Families whose Household income was ,000or higher were two times more likely to encounter identity theft than households whose salary and income were under ,000 (U.S. DOJ 2005)
7% of people who had their identity stolen had it done in order for the thieves to commit medical identity theft.

The next section of statistics we focus on is discovery. This part is one of the hardest since it is when people normally find out they have become a victim of ID theft and by then it is already too late.

Discovery

Between 38 to 48 % of ID theft victims find out about their identity being stolen within the first three months of the crime. About 9 to 18% of the victims never really know their identity has been stolen until well over four years or later. (these statistics come from the Identity Theft Resource Center Aftermath Study)
Between 50.2 Million Americans are now using some kind of credit monitoring service to protect themselves. (As of Sept 2008 provided by the Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
Around 44% of American consumers view their reports using credit report agencies online while one in seven receive their credit report at home.

Focusing on recovery takes tremendous tolls on ID theft victims. Countless hours and a lot of money are spent trying to undo the damage this horrendous crime has caused in the victims lives Some people spend years doing this. But by then it is too late for anything other than trying to return your life back to normal.

Recovery

Depending on the seriousness of the case, victims of ID theft take about 5,840 hours trying to counter and correct the effects and damaged caused by the crime. This equals to almost working a full-time job for two whole years by the way. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)
The average victim of ID theft will spend 330 hours fixing the harm and damage caused by the crime. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)
26 to 32% of ID theft victims take about 4 to 6 months to fix the problem. 11 to 23% of the victims take anywhere between 7 months to a full year trying to resolve their cases. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)
46% of victims involved in having their identity stolen ended up installing an antivirus, firewall or a anti-spyware program or software on their computer after the fact.
23% ended up switching their primary bank while 22% ended up switching their credit card company as well. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
Identity theft victims have to contact several different agencies while attempting to resolve the fraud committed against them.
66% must work together with financial institutions.
40% must contact credit bureaus.
35% have to get help from their local law enforcement agencies.
24% have no choice but to deal with debt collectors.
20% need to work together with assistant services for identity theft.
13% must contact the Federal Trade Commission. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)

When people look at the overall cost ID theft has on the world, the numbers are quite shocking to say the least. With the usage in Internet rising daily and people all over the word having access to computers, this crime and numbers can only rise. If that is the case, many consumers out there will be in for a costly, time consuming journey when trying to regain their identity and life back.

Overall Cost

31 billion dollars was the current account fraud total in 2008. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
221 billion dollars a year are lost by businesses all over the world due to identity theft. (Aberdeen Group)
Identity thefts victims lose around 1 to ,378 of they own money while trying to regain their identity and resolve the problem. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)
The average cost of ID theft victims is 0 (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
47% of identity theft victims come across problems when trying to qualify for a new loan. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)
70% of Identity theft victims encounter serious hurdles when attempting to remove negative information on their credit reports which resulted from the Identity theft. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)
Average amount of money lost per household amounted to ,620. (U.S. DOJ 2005)

Culprits

43% of ID theft victims knew the culprit and perpetrator of the crime. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)
The most likely culprit involved in case of child identity theft were the children’s parents. (ITRC Aftermath Study 2004)

This section which covers the methods use by identity theft thieves is one that most people need to focus on since it can very well help them to avoid falling victim to this crime and ending up here as a statistic.

Methods

43% (Almost half) of every identity theft crime is due to physical paperwork or wallets being stolen. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
Online activity was to blame for 11% of methods used for this crime. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
A stolen credit card number or a debit card accounted for 38% of the methods used for identity theft. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
A stolen Social Security number was to blame for 37% of identity theft victims. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
36% of all identity theft victims report having their phone number and name endangered. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
24% of the ID theft victims financial account numbers were endangered and compromised due to the ID theft crime. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)
Well over 35 million data records of corporate and government data were breached and compromised in 2008. (ITRC)
In 2008, much of the 59% of new account fraud reported was due to Perpetrators opening up new stolen credit cards and store branded credit card accounts. (Javelin Strategy and Research 2009)

The numbers paint a compelling truth and serve as a warning to all of us; protect yourself before you become the next victim of identity theft. Unless people take a defensive and proactive approach to this crime, they may end up being another number added to the many victims already on this list. Remember that ID thieves never take a day off, never cease to stop doing anything other than to try and strip you of your identity and all they can get out it in return. Protect yourself today.

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