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Federal And State Governments Protect Victims Of Identity Theft By

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Identity Theft By Age

Deter. Detect. Defend. Avoid ID Theft | Federal Trade Commission

People ages 30 to 39 are most likely to get their identities stolen, followed by 40 to 49-year-olds.

This could be due to the fact that by that age most people already have a stable job and a higher income. Their identity details are used more often and are more vulnerable to theft and more attractive to thieves.

People over 60, as well as those under 19 years of age, are least likely to fall victim to identity theft.

Types Of Identity Theft

While the goal of identity theft is almost always some sort of financial or personal gain, there are different types of identity theft, usually categorized by the type of data stolen. The following are the major categories in which identity thieves seek to plunder:

  • Medical An individual takes anothers personal information to garner free healthcare.
  • Social Security In the United States, an individuals Social Security number provides identity thieves with easy access to things such as loans and credit cards the victim is usually left on the hook for outstanding unpaid balances.
  • Synthetic An identity thief uses a combination of fake information and real, stolen information to create a brand-new identity, which the thief then uses to open accounts and make purchases. In these instances, the primary victims are often credit-providing companies and lenders the thief borrows large amounts of money and, of course, never makes any repayment to the lenders.
  • Tax An individual uses anothers Social Security number or other personal information to file fraudulent state and/or federal tax returns, allowing the thief to collect tax refunds illegally.
  • Child Child identity theft can be used in several ways to avoid legal consequences, open accounts, make fraudulent purchases, or even to acquire employment or a residence.
  • Identity Theft Trends In 2021

    The Identity Theft Resource Center reports that 1,291 breaches occurred in the first three quarters of 2021, and the trend for the year indicates that the number of attacks could overtake the current record of 1,632 set in 2017.

    In the first two quarters of 2021, it looked as though the number of victims was going down, but it rose dramatically in the third quarter, mainly due to vulnerable cloud databases instead of actual data breaches.

    Everyone needs to continue to practice good cyber-hygiene to protect themselves and their loved ones as these crimes continue to increase, Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the ITRC, stated on the ITRC’s website. One area companies will focus their security efforts on going forward will be their cloud databases.

    The most significant increase in 2021 is seen in phishing attacks, ransomware attacks and supply chain attacks. Phishing attacks nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020, ransomware payouts rose 82% in the first half of 2021, and supply chain attacks are up 42%.

    Some of these attacks have become national news and impacted major companies. Although these breaches do not directly target consumers, they do affect their daily lives.

    Wizard Spider has been the most reported e-crime group for the last two years in a row. It targets academic entities in September and October as students go back to school and targets health care entities in the fourth quarter during flu and enrollment seasons.

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    Identity Theft Resources: The Ultimate Guide

    It is frustrating to imagine that someone else has been using your credit card or identity without you knowing they are doing it. In this article, we provide information on how to identify identity theft, how to prevent financial losses incurred as a result of having your identity stolen, and recovering from any damages that may have occurred. Here is your ultimate guide on who you can contact if you believe youve become a victim of identity theft.

    Costs Characteristics And Causes Of Identity Theft

    Federal And State Governments Protect Victims Of Identity Theft By ...

    Nationwide losses from all incidents of identity theft totaled $15.1 billion in 2018, according to the U.S. Justice Department.8 The Justice Department data do not include breakdowns by state however, New Yorks losses would total more than $800 million if the States share was similar to its share of the identity theft reports to the FTC in 2018 .

    The Justice Department estimated that 2.8 million persons age 16 or older experienced one or more incidents of identity theft in 2018 and had out-of-pocket losses the remaining 88 percent had no out-of-pocket losses or losses of less than $1. Persons ages 35 to 49 and ages 50 to 64 had a higher prevalence of identity theft than all other age groups. In 2018, persons in the highest income category had the highest prevalence of identity theft . Among victims experiencing out-of-pocket losses of $1 or more, the average loss was $640 and the median loss was $100. These figures include only losses to individuals, not losses to businesses.

    According to the report, more females than males experienced identity theft, but males and females had similar identity theft prevalence rates . Whites had a higher prevalence of identity theft than Asians , Blacks and Hispanics .

    COVID-19 Identity Theft

    Even Erie Countys top prosecutor, District Attorney John Flynn, reported receiving notice that someone used his information to file a false UI claim. If someone tried to use my name, he said, everybodys at risk.17

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    Who Are The Victims Who Are The Perpetrators

    Another notable feature of identity theft is that its impact on victims extends across all ages. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 29 percent of identity theft complaints came from persons aged 18-29, 25 percent from persons aged 30-39, 21 percent from persons aged 40-49, 13 percent from persons aged 50-59, and 10 percent from persons aged 60 and more. Even persons under the age of 18 accounted for 3 percent of all identity-theft complaints. 10 Similar findings are echoed in Canadian research. According to research recently conducted by the Fraud Prevention Forum in Canada, victims of identity theft cut across all segments of Canadian society regardless of income and levels of education.11 However, the largest targeted segments of the population appear to be those who have a good credit rating or potential for good credit.

    Individuals are not the only victims of identity theft. Corporations, financial institutions and small businesses can suffer not only financial loss but also damage to reputation, credibility and future operations.

    Comprehensive statistics on the perpetrators of identity theft are lacking and available data on identity thieves is largely anecdotal. However, this data indicates that identity thieves tend to fall into three broad categories:

    The Homeland Security And Terrorism Threat From Document Fraud Identity Theft And Ssn Misuse

    Presenting false documentation to SSA. Stealing another person’s SSN. Purchasing an SSN on the black market. Using the SSN of a deceased individual. Creating a nine-digit number out of thin air.

    Support Homeland Security. Identify patterns and trends of SSN misuse. Locate systemic weaknesses that contribute to SSN misuse such as in the enumeration and earnings related processes. Recommend legislative or other corrective actions to ensure the SSN’s integrity. Pursue criminal and civil enforcement provisions for individuals misusing SSNs.

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    Identity Theft Is The Most Common Consequence Of A Data Breach It Occurs More Than Half Of The Time

    The last statistics on data breach incidents distribution is from 2018.

    The results of this report are similar to previous ones.

    Existential data breaches involve sensitive company assets, like intellectual property.

    Nuisance attacks are those in which just a username and affiliation were compromised.

    Uk Identity Theft Reaching More Than Epidemic Levels In 2020

    How to protect yourself from post-pandemic identity theft

    In 2017, the Cifas fraud prevention organization announced that identity fraud in the UK was reaching epidemic levels.

    Fraud incidents were occurring at a rate of 500 per day.

    The situation was worse in 2020, with an increase of a third.

    Notably, 42% of reported offenses sought to obtain a credit card.

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    Identity Theft In Pandemic Benefits Programs

    Congress passed massive relief legislation totaling more than $5 trillion to fight the effects of the pandemic. It was a lot of moneyand it went out fastto workers who lost their jobs, small businesses forced to close due to health and safety concerns, and families trying to pay bills. With so much money going out, criminals schemed to steal peoples identities. They hacked into social media accounts or used email phishing schemes and impersonation scams to steal personal information. Then they used it to get unemployment checks and create fake farms to pocket business loans.

    But the oversight community is fighting back. Across all levels of governmentfederal, state, and localwatchdogs are sounding the alarm and law enforcement is prosecuting criminals. Our timeline takes you through their efforts to protect pandemic relief funds.

    If you believe you are the victim of identity theft, go to IdentityTheft.gov or check out the timeline below for resources.

    Information For The United States Secret Service:

    Visit the website at:

    This division is responsible for detecting and prosecuting fraud. This includes bank fraud, credit card or debit card fraud, and computer crimes including identity theft, fraudulent identification, and fraudulent government or commercial securities. The website has useful information about how to report incidents of abuse or misconduct in the private sector under a complaint form.

    U.S. Secret Service

    245 Murray Drive, Building 410, Washington, DC 20223

    202-406-5708

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    Social Media Users Have A 46% Higher Risk Of Id Theft

    Javelin Strategy found that people who use Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat were more vulnerable to identity theft.

    We can see from the Federal Trade Commission reports that social media as an attack vector is rising year by year.

    Social media account takeovers are on the rise too.

    However, users are starting to be more careful about sharing personal information in these channels.

    We will cover these statistics in the following sections.

    The Eu Registered A 19% Increase Of The Data Breaches Year Per Year Since The Application Of The General Data Protection Regulation

    Seven Steps to Take If You

    There were 281,000 data breach notifications from the application of GDPR in 2018 to January 2021, according to DLA Piper.

    The law sought to give a framework to protect private information.

    It may seem the GDPR didnt affect the breachs rising tendency.

    But this law is, without doubt, a key step for a more secure world.

    Companies will improve their security standards.

    The metrics will improve in the future.

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    Government Benefits Identity Theft Increased 2920% Over 2020

    The statistic is also from the FTC report.

    That makes government benefits fraud the top reported type in 2020.

    Federal, state, and city governments provided financial help to Americans during the Coronavirus pandemic.

    In particular, the program named Federal Stimulus Payment asked for data easy to provide or to fake by impostors.

    This way, the attackers made it to steal the identities of the people who most needed help.

    • Donations to fake aid organizations
    • Fake Zoom invitations for password stealing
    • Bogus Offers for Vaccinations and Home Test Kits

    Identity Theft By Race

    White communities reported identity theft incidents the most, making up 71% of all identity theft victims, with indigenous and multiracial persons being the least ethnic groups to report these incidents.

    Lets compare those figures to the same groups as a percentage of the population.

    Race
    2.1% 2.63%

    These figures indicate that whites are slightly more likely to be targeted by identity thieves. This may be because the white population tends to be more affluent, and as we established earlier, 51% of victims of identity theft had an annual income of $75,000 or more.It is not clear whether identity thieves are deliberately targeting more affluent individuals or more affluent individuals are simply more active in credit markets, leaving their identifying information more exposed.

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    Filing Form 14039 Identity Theft Affidavit

    Only taxpayers who believe they’re victims of tax-related identity theft and who haven’t received one of the IRS letters outlined above should complete Form 14039.

    A fillable Form 14039 PDF is available on IRS.gov. It can be completed online, printed and attached to a paper tax return for mailing to the IRS. Or taxpayers may complete the form online at the Federal Trade Commission and the FTC will electronically transfer the Form 14039 but not the tax return to the IRS.

    The IRS will work to verify the legitimate taxpayer, clear the fraudulent return from the taxpayer’s account and generally, place a special marker on the account that will generate an IP PIN each year for the taxpayer who is a confirmed victim.

    Where Is Identity Theft Most Common

    New Federal Law Offers Parents Protections From Child Identity Theft

    The FTC collects reports from consumers on a range of marketplace experiences and stores them in a secure online database. FTC statistics also include reports from other organizations, including federal, state, local and international law enforcement agencies. Out of over 4.7 million reports last year, 29% were related to identity theft.

    According to the FTC, in 2020, Kansas has the highest percentage of identity theft reports per capita, and California has the highest total number of reports overall.

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    The Us Is The Country With The Greater Quantity Of Stolen Records Per Capita It Surpasses Second Place South Korea By More Than 4 Times

    6,219,819,956 recorded cases from 2013 to March 2020.

    About 19 records per person.

    The US is a highly populated country.

    It is one of the most developed in technology, having lots of IT companies providing services worldwide.

    That could be one of the reasons for the high nefarious numbers.

    Similar is the case for the following countries in the list.

    China and India are the second and third in absolute quantity of stolen records.

    That makes sense because they also have a big technology industry.

    Why didnt they make it into the top 20 per capita?

    The population is one possible reason.

    Chinas data security laws are deemed to be of the highest priority.

    They also enforce a publicly known censorship.

    Indias cybersecurity laws are in the other extreme too lax.

    In either extreme, other reasons for the statistic could be:

    • Not proper detection of the breaches
    • A better protection system
    • The non-disclosure of all breaches

    Formjacking The New Trend For Stealing Your Data

    Formjacking consists of injecting malicious Javascript code on a websites forms.

    It scrapes personal information.

    Once a user submits its data, the malicious code collects and transfers it to another server.

    This data can be your credit card details.

    Symantec detected and blocked 3.7 million formjacking attempts just in 2018, according to its 2019 Internet Security Threat Report.

    But the numbers kept rising.

    In Q1 2020, Symantec found 7,836 compromised websites.

    Around 200 more than the previous quarter.

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    You Tell Us You May Be A Victim Of Tax

    Heres what happens if you learn you are a victim of tax-related identity theft. For example, your e-filed return rejects because of a duplicate tax filing with your Social Security number, and you report the incident to us:

  • You’ll receive a letter from the IRS acknowledging the IRS received your Form 14039
  • Your case will be assigned to our Identity Theft Victim Assistance organization where it will be researched and resolved by an employee with specialized identity theft training.
  • The IDTVA organization will work to resolve your identity theft case by:
  • Assessing the scope of the issues and trying to determine if your identity theft issue affects one or more tax years.
  • Addressing all the issues related to the fraudulent return. This includes determining if there are additional victims, who may be unknown to you, listed on the fraudulent return.
  • Researching the case to verify and authenticate all the names, addresses and SSNs are accurate or fraudulent.
  • Conducting a case analysis to determine if all outstanding issues were addressed.
  • Ensuring your tax return is properly processed and if you are due a refund, releasing your refund.
  • Removing the fraudulent return from your tax records.
  • After filing Form 14039
  • Deceased Identities Were Stolen Per Year: 25 Million

    Attorney General Josh Stein Calls on Federal Government to Protect ...

    They can retrievepersonal information from public obituaries.

    Stolen IDs can be used for gaining social security benefits, open a line of credit, and more.

    Stealing a dead persons identity is commonly referred to as ghosting.

    Ghosting often goes unnoticed for months or years.

    ID Analytics conducted the research.

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    + Shocking Identity Theft Statistics & Facts

    Here you have a completelist of identity theft facts and statistics worldwide, .

    Everything you need to know to avoid being the next one!

    How did I make it?

    I gathered the latest data in diverse areas of interest for example, tendencies, types of attacks, impact, and what were doing about it in different parts of the globe.

    I then sorted facts and statistics by thematic: Stolen Data, The Identity Theft Zoo, Risk Groups, Impact, and What Are We Doing?

    Ill explain the main concepts at the beginning of each section.

    The last sections are relevant for your security.

    Dont forget to look at them!

    When To File An Identity Theft Affidavit

  • IRS Statements and Announcements
  • FS-2022-25, April 2022

    When a taxpayer believes their personal information is being used to file fraudulent tax returns, they should submit a Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit PDF, to the IRS. But in most cases, taxpayers do not need to complete this form. Only victims of tax-related identity theft should submit the Form 14039, and only if they haven’t received certain letters from the IRS.

    All taxpayers can request an Identity Protection Personal Identification Number using the Get An Identity Protection PIN tool on IRS.gov to protect themselves from becoming a victim of tax-related identity theft.

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