By Miriam Thoss
Special to the AFRO
Programs like FreeShare (above), can often be prowled by identity thieves. (Courtesy Photo/brothersoft.com)
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(May 5, 2009) - Now that most people have finished filing their taxes, open season has begun for identity thieves.
“People are too careless with their intimate data,” said Mike Prusinski, of LifeLock, an industry leader in the burgeoning field of identity theft protection.
As a fresh wave of tax returns are saved on computers across the nation, thieves are working overtime to harvest the bounty of personal information taxpayers have unknowingly exposed to the world.
And, their new gleaning grounds—peer-to-peer networks like Limewire and FreeShare—is proving fruitful.
“There are more than 250,000 of these types of programs,” Prusinski told the AFRO.
“Consumers put these on their computer, thinking they are just going to share music or video files. What they don’t know [is] that these programs also allow people to share private documents.”
He continued, “Criminals know exactly how these programs work: They only have to type in the term ‘tax return’ and all these data are coming through, so that the criminals can download these on their computers.”
Taxpayer’s information includes address, social security number and bank account details.
Most alarming, parents often don’t know that the programs are on their computer.
“Parents are not aware that the kids download mp3 or video files on the working computer or laptop,” Prusinski said.
“Maybe years later, the parents start seeing the fateful affects: Credit card accounts open and the criminals have even access to passwords and bank account details,” he added.
Prusinski said undocumented immigrants may even use social security numbers to get jobs.
The latest Federal Trade Commission report shows an estimated 1.2 million complaints about identity theft and 89 million of victims this year.
And fixing the problem requires more than 300 hours in addition to staggering inancial costs.
“It costs billions of dollars to consumers to rectify the damage,” said Prusinski.
Avoiding such burdens requires diligence and education among consumers, Prusinski said.
“First of all, we all must be aware that criminals find ways to theft intimate data,” he said.
“Maybe the Congress must lay down some laws but, we can’t wait on the government to change the laws, even if they were trying to do so.”