Identity Theft Prevention More Important than Ever

Identity Theft occurs when someone unlawfully uses another person's personal information for such illegal purposes as purchasing goods, conducting financial transactions or even illegal immigration. According to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Identity Theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States. Identity theft prevention has become more important than ever.

Thieves can gain a victim's personal information in a number of ways, including stolen mail, email "phishing" and stolen identification. In fact, if a thief finds a copy of a credit card statement, that statement can often provide sufficient information to steal an identity and commit financial crimes.

Identity theft is a massive and rapidly growing problem for both consumers and businesses:

  • 9.3 Million Americans were victims of Identity theft in 2004, while businesses lost more than $50 billion (Better Business Bureau).
  • The number of Identity theft cases grew 80% from 2003 to 2004 (Gartner Group).
  • ID theft in financial services goes well beyond credit card abuse. Twenty percent of victims reported that thieves also misused checking and savings accounts, and some even had fraudulent mortgages taken out in their names (FTC).
  • Victims spend an average of 600 hours clearing their names (Identity Theft Resource Center).

KNOWLEDGE VERIFICATION IS NOT ENOUGH


Once a criminal has stolen personal information, such as social security numbers and bank statements, he or she is well-armed to beat many of today's customer verification procedures. In general, ID thieves prefer targeting "faceless" transactions, such as those on the Internet or telephone. They choose these faceless transactions because most online or telephone-based authentication schemes are knowledge-based and can be beaten with stolen personal information. Clearly, ID thieves have mastered many of the knowledge-based verification schemes used by banks and other businesses.

Diaphonics has created Spike Server, a unique and powerful voice verification system that provides enhanced identity theft prevention security for telephone transactions.

Learn more about Spike Server