MORRIS: Identity theft and your role in protecting your data

By Kyra Morris, contributing editor | The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the U.S. government’s central repository for identity (ID) theft complaints and provides victim assistance and consumer education. In 2014, one billion records – Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, health records, and private photos — were taken. Forty percent of all identity thefts are tax- or wage-related.

In 2015, the IRS “Get Transcript” data breach involved potentially 724,000 compromised accounts. The thieves were able to transcend a multi-step authentication process that required prior personal knowledge about the taxpayers. There was also an additional step where several personal identity verification questions typically only known by the taxpayer were correctly answered.

by · 08/29/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Money, Views