Someone, somewhere is having a heyday with my bank account. All seven dollars have most likely vanished.
For once, I am not to blame for money disappearing from my account. It is Visa’s fault. Recently, some Visa credit card holders were informed their bank information was accidentally released, putting these cardholders in danger of identity theft, something I have been paranoid about ever since I saw “The Net.”
This occurrence is one of many “accidental slips” that have recently taken place.
More frightening, many of these occurrences involve universities, making students a major target. The University of Georgia and New York University had consequential incidents with criminals hacking into students’ information earlier this year.
The worst part: students’ ID numbers were their social security numbers as well, putting them at even greater risk for identity theft. Luckily, the University of Wisconsin has long abandoned these practices, issuing everyone a scattered ten-digit identification number that I can barely remember even after two and a half years.
Although some of these incidences are not the individual’s fault, most are. According to U.S. News and World Report, 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft last year.
The newest fraud that leads to the theft of one’s identity is “phishing”: e-mails resembling those of trusted brands, well-known banks, online retailers and credit card companies, asking e-mail users to enter personal data such as social security numbers or mother’s maiden name. The criminals then abuse the confidential information. Previous phishing scams have targeted customers of companies such as eBay, Citibank and PayPal.
Unfortunately, little has been done to stop these criminals until recently. President Bush signed legislation to increase penalties for identity theft-related crimes. Convictions carry a mandatory two-year prison sentence.
But who knows, these criminals can hack into anything. They could probably even hack into the prison system and get out early.
It seems as though no one is safe anymore. Obviously, these criminals are blindly robbing whomever they can.
Why else would they come after a girl with seven dollars to her name?
The e-mail scams, scams that even my grandma would not fall for, are reserved for the novice Internet user. But, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), hackers are able to convince about 5 percent of the people they attempt to scam to release confidential information. The business of phishing is growing as it becomes more believable as hackers become better at mimicking the websites and logos of well-known companies.
While education about these scams may deteriorate this business and the threat of theft to individuals, we cannot protect ourselves from situations such as banks and credit card companies leaking information to criminals.
Students and young people are particularly at risk, not because of their lush bank accounts sometimes padded by parents or loved ones, but because they simply do not monitor money well.
This is in large part due to the near-extinction of paper money. There is a piece of plastic for everything from Pop’s Club to the grocery store. Who saves receipts or writes down every penny they spend? Most people do not carry anything but a credit or debit card on them.
When students get bank statements or credit card bills and they do not know how they spent the amount of money they did, they most usually chalk it up to drunken binges or a poor memory. Perhaps everyone should take a closer look at their next bill and make sure they can account for everything they spent and notify the proper person at the bank or credit card company if they are unsure of anything. This might take away the stealing candy from a baby vibe we are all giving off to the hackers.
Of course, this is all advice from someone who has seven dollars.
Joanna Salmen ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and Spanish.
