Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content and threat management solutions, urges the public to be more vigilant in protecting their personal details to prevent identity theft.
Identity theft is an act wherein a person or a group of persons wrongfully obtain and utilize personal and often crucial information from other people, often for financial gains.
These data can be anything, from school or government records, medical reports, financial accounts, company-related information, email addresses of other people who could also be targeted, among others.
There are many ways of acquiring personal information illegally, though the Internet has become a common tool for criminals to do identity theft. Some criminals use malicious software to infect unprotected PCs, the malware searches for every personal data in the infected PC, which are then sent to the original source of the malware.
The information is then used in a variety of ways such as selling it to other criminal organizations, for blackmail, or in the case of those whose credit card accounts were stolen, to make purchases without the knowledge of the credit card owner.
In most cases, victims actually don’t know they were or are still victims especially when their PCs remain unprotected by legitimate security applications. Many victims of identity thieves tend to lose large amounts of money or even damage their reputation. Some victims become targets for blackmail or their data become
