I once read an article in USA Today where a victim of identity theft recounted his misfortune. True to form, the experience had cost him near all of his available assets and a mountain of red tape to attempt to recover. What struck me most was that his lesson learned was that he would never again use credit cards or participate in an e-commerce transaction. Now, there is a guy walking around with a wad of cash.
Effectively, this man had shifted his risk. Where once he was prone to credit card fraud, he is now a potential mugging victim, and his identity could still be stolen.
Might he have considered subscribing to a credit monitoring service as provided by one of the major credit card bureaus (Disclosure: I am not a fan of third-party credit monitoring solutions, myself)? Might he have agreed to pay fractions of a cent per $100 to allow his credit card issuers to monitor the accounts for fraud? Could he have selected a bank that themselves provided fraud monitoring to its account holders? Could he have routinely reviewed his account balances and transaction history?
As we are not provided with details of the origination of the theft, might his computer have not had a basic firewall, current software patches, or updated virus protection? May he have practiced poor information disclosure habits and succumbed to either a talented social engineer or been overheard providing sensitive information by the next customer in line?
Yes. In each of these cases, yes!
Concerned with identity theft? Concerned about all those nasty hackers out there? Practice the basics. Employ major credit bureau, credit card, and bank fraud monitoring. Patch your system and run a current internet security suite. Don't share sensitive information with unauthorized third-parties and take care to reasonably protect such disclosure when it is necessary.
Trust...but verify.
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