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Your Identity Is Worth Less Than $15

Posted by kdawson on from the less-than-your-fillings dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "One of the more interesting tidbits in Symantec's Global Internet Threat Report (PDF, 105 pages) is the price sheet, which suggests that someone's 'full identity' is worth in the range of $1-$15. Your email password goes for $4-$30 and your bank account might fetch $10-$1000. With those prices, I wonder how often they pay more for the bank account than is actually in it? There's also an executive summary (PDF, 36 pages)."

2 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Bank accounts provide bandwidth, not cash. by twotommylong · · Score: 5, Informative

    "With those prices, I wonder how often they pay more for the bank account than is actually in it? "

    It's not just the funds the fraudsters are after... They are after 3 things:

    1) Once you have a bank account, you capacity in the laundering pipeline. With the $10,000 detection threshholds, and the other AML (anti-money laundering) requirements, it takes a lot more bank Xfers to multiple parallel accounts to move money between the point of fraud, to the point of safe harbor. ACH-IN.... ACH-OUT. These are often 'mule' accounts to allow a network of smaller transfers that allow a larger aggregate money movement. Since I have 30-90 days before you notice all these $1-9000 xfers going in and out of your account... I need to constantly get new bank accounts to keep my laundering pipeline at full 'bandwidth.' If I'm lucky, I can pull a change of (email) address on you, so I can completely control the account for a small period of time (NOTE: address change just got 'red flagged' by the US FACT act of 2003... so in addition to Patriot Act reviews at account opening... address changes will (mandatory by all financial institutions by Nov 2008) be audited by regulators to verify the organization did due diligence to check for fraudulent activity).

    2) Having a Bank Account makes opening a PayPal, a credit card, a stock trading or another bank account all the easier. All of these are much more lucrative, and they can leverage funds (margin, credit) , and if I open them, there is much less chance of detection by you (since I completely control the contact information). This is classic identity theft ("Officer, I don't have a bank account in the Outer Antilles!")

    3) if we get lucky, you got cash... which we'll use in a leverage scam (open a stock account, and seed a pumpNdump).

  2. Re:Who would trust Symantec by jank1887 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Peter Norton gave us Norton. Symantec bought out his company in 1990, and has been slapping the brand name on everything they've put out since. Bloat and decline in quality followed.

    from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities
    "The Norton Utilities releases were collections of software utilities. Peter Norton published the first version for DOS, The Norton Utilities, Release 1, ca 1981. Release 2 came out several years later, subsequent to the first hard drives for the IBM PC line. Peter Norton's company was sold to Symantec in 1990. However his name remains as a "brand" for Symantec's range of utility and security software for home users."