190 likes | 490 Views
Identity Theft and Online Identity Solutions. Heidi Inman May 29, 2008. Identity Theft Defined. Fraud that involves stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be someone else.
E N D
Identity Theft and Online Identity Solutions Heidi Inman May 29, 2008
Identity Theft Defined • Fraud that involves stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be someone else. • The term is relatively new and is actually a misnomer, since it is not possible to steal an identity, only to use it.
Types of Identity Theft • Financial Identity Theft – using another’s identity to obtain goods/services • Criminal Identity Theft – posing as another when apprehended for a crime • Identity Cloning – using another’s information to assume his or her identity in daily life • Business/Commercial Identity Theft – using another’s business name to obtain credit
Techniques for Obtaining Personal Information • Researching about the victim in government registers, internet search engines, or public record search services • Stealing personal information in computer databases (Trojan horses, hacking) • Phishing - Impersonating a trusted company/institution/organization in an electronic communication to promote revealing of personal information
Techniques for Obtaining Personal Information Cont. • Browsing social net sites such as MySpace and Facebook for personal details that have been posted by users • Remotely reading information from an RFID chip on a smart card, RFID-enabled credit card, or passport
Actions taken by the United States • Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act • Makes the possession of any “means of identification” to “knowingly transfer, possess, or use without lawful authority” a federal crime. • Punishment can be up to 5, 15, 20, or 30 years in federal prison, plus fines, depending on the exact crime. • Gives the Federal Trade Commission authority to track the number of incidents and the dollar value of losses.
FTC Stats • ID Theft is fastest growing crime in America • 2003 estimate was that identity theft accounted for $52.6 billion of losses in the preceding year alone • Affected more than 9.91 million Americans • Average fraud per person rose from $5,249 in 2003 to $6,383 in 2006 • Average amount of time spent by victims resolving the problem is about 40 hours
Fighting Identity Theft • Single Sign-On (SSO) – a method of access control that enables a user to authenticate once and gain access to the resources of multiple software systems. • Single Sign-Off – the reverse process whereby a single action of signing out terminates access to multiple software systems.
Implementations of Single Sign-On • Windows Live (Originally .NET Passport) – developed and provided by Microsoft • Allows users to log in to many websites using one account • Hotmail • SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) – used for Google Applications • Gmail
Challenges and Advantages to Single Sign-On • Biggest challenge is getting long-time users who’ve customized their own links and methods for accessing online services to change. • Advantages include reducing the amount of internal fraud by malicious employee contact, convenience of password access, security on all levels of entry/exit/access to systems, and centralized reporting for compliance adherence.
Real ID Act • National ID Cards – electronically readable, federally approved ID cards for Americans. • If you live or work in the United States, you’ll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage or nearly any government service.
National ID Card • What will be stored on this card? • Name • Birth Date • Sex • ID Number • Digital Photograph • Address • Common Machine-Readable Technology
National ID Card cont. • Positives • Reduce Fraud • Combat Terrorism • Improve Airline Security • Negatives • Potential to be misused by thieves with RFID readers • Could promote irresponsible national behavior
Open ID • Better way to identify a person/organization on the internet. • A shared identity service. • Allows Internet users to log on to many different web sites using a single digital identity. • Eliminates the need for a different user name and password for each site. • Lets users control the amount of personal information they provide.
Sources • "SAML Single Sign-On (SSO) Service for Google Apps". 5/28/2008 <http://code.google.com/apis/apps/sso/saml_reference_implementation.html>. • "Windows Live ID". 5/28/2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_ID>. • "Single Sign-On". 5/23/08 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Sign-On>. • Christopher, Dawson. "Single signon portal makes sense for university". ZDNet Education. 5/23/08 <http://education.zdnet.com?p=894>. • "Identity Theft". 5/23/08 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft>. • "REAL ID Act". 5/28/08 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act>. • Jon, Oltsik. "An easier identity solution". CNET News.com. 5/27/08 <http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6151431-7.html>. • Declan, McCullagh. "FAQ: How Real ID will affect you". CNET News.com. 5/27/08 <http://news.cnet.com/FAQ-How-Real-ID-will-affect-you/2100-1028_3-5697111.html>. • Declan, McCullagh. "National ID cards on the way?". CNET News.com. 5/27/08 <http://news.cnet.com/National-ID-cards-on-the-way---page-3/2100-1028_3-5573414-3.html>. • "OpenID". 5/28/08 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID>.