Has your identity been compromised?

Posted By on January 25, 2007

Good News
I was hesitant about a site designed to cross reference known stolen ids with personal private information after a friend sent me a StolenIDsearch link, but thankfully he include a Dark Reading article that eased my concern. After reading it, I felt a little less skeptical and as you probably guessed just could help myself. So I plugged in my social security number and … Whew … thankfully I’m still OK according to this quick check. Hopefully those of you brave enough to trust this service will be fine too?

According to a study by Javelin Group, a research firm, identity theft victims typically don’t discover their information has been stolen until 12 months after a thief first used it. But there is an advantage to finding out quickly, the research firm says. Victims who detected the crime by monitoring their accounts online had average loses of $551; victims who relied on monitoring paper statements had average loses of $4,543.

Comments

  • http://cincitdi.com Tim

    I found StolenIDsearch about a week ago, I too was (and am) hesitant about its search. With all of the possibilities for cross site scripting, browser bugs (leaking cookies, etc) it would be far too easy for a malicious site to link in your SSN with your name, email, address, etc. Assuming you try this from a clean PC (no history, cookies, etc) and fully patched up I suppose you can give it a try but it is hard to trust anyone on the internet.

  • http://cincitdi.com Tim

    I found StolenIDsearch about a week ago, I too was (and am) hesitant about its search. With all of the possibilities for cross site scripting, browser bugs (leaking cookies, etc) it would be far too easy for a malicious site to link in your SSN with your name, email, address, etc. Assuming you try this from a clean PC (no history, cookies, etc) and fully patched up I suppose you can give it a try but it is hard to trust anyone on the internet.

  • Mark Wissmann

    Sounds to me like it would be a great place for those who have criminally obtained SSN’s to verifiy that they are valid numbers and that they are clear to exploit the numbers to an even greater extent. They can tell me all they want about how safe they are, but once they get your information, can you really be so sure. One big red flag, and it my be my paranoia or a slick marketing plan, but why would they do this for free?

  • Mark Wissmann

    Sounds to me like it would be a great place for those who have criminally obtained SSN’s to verifiy that they are valid numbers and that they are clear to exploit the numbers to an even greater extent. They can tell me all they want about how safe they are, but once they get your information, can you really be so sure. One big red flag, and it my be my paranoia or a slick marketing plan, but why would they do this for free?

  • mike

    The trend is for more databases of personal information to be created and linked– especially regarding immigration/terrorism issues. This is likely to make privacy all the more scarce and abuse of said privacy much more common.

  • mike

    The trend is for more databases of personal information to be created and linked– especially regarding immigration/terrorism issues. This is likely to make privacy all the more scarce and abuse of said privacy much more common.

  • http://cincitdi.com Tim

    Anytime you put your information online its a risk. Actually anytime you give your information to ANYONE its a risk, the internet just makes it a bigger risk. From some light research I can determine that StolenIDsearch is controlled by:
    TrustedID, Inc.
    555 Twin Dolphin Drive
    Suite 610
    Redwood City, California 94065
    United States
    TrustedID seems to be a legit company who’s interest is to protect people from identity theft.
    I have to think that once you go to the next step on StolenIDsearch they will push you to their many pay for security services, all the time building their own contact lists with semi public information that people are all to easy to give up these days.
    Sadly I know my name and CC information (and SSN) is probably in several hundred databases across the US, from government databases, Dr’s offices, banks, to online stores such as Amazon.com or even retail locations such as Best Buy which already know way too much about me when I login to the sites.

    The short answer is you cannot protect yourself if your information is online or if your information is in someones database, there is a risk.

  • http://cincitdi.com Tim

    Anytime you put your information online its a risk. Actually anytime you give your information to ANYONE its a risk, the internet just makes it a bigger risk. From some light research I can determine that StolenIDsearch is controlled by:
    TrustedID, Inc.
    555 Twin Dolphin Drive
    Suite 610
    Redwood City, California 94065
    United States
    TrustedID seems to be a legit company who’s interest is to protect people from identity theft.
    I have to think that once you go to the next step on StolenIDsearch they will push you to their many pay for security services, all the time building their own contact lists with semi public information that people are all to easy to give up these days.
    Sadly I know my name and CC information (and SSN) is probably in several hundred databases across the US, from government databases, Dr’s offices, banks, to online stores such as Amazon.com or even retail locations such as Best Buy which already know way too much about me when I login to the sites.

    The short answer is you cannot protect yourself if your information is online or if your information is in someones database, there is a risk.

  • https://www.trustedid.com Scott Mitic

    Hello Everyone,

    In the past few days, we’ve seen thousands of people make comments about our StolenID Search service. We appreciate everyone who sees value in the service as well as those who have questions.

    We feel that it makes good sense to help address all those questions in one common forum. Please visit our TrustedID blog (link below), as a venue to find answers to your questions/concerns related to our new service.
    http://blog.trustedid.com/?p=311

    Thanks!
    Scott Mitic
    CEO, TrustedID

  • https://www.trustedid.com Scott Mitic

    Hello Everyone,

    In the past few days, we’ve seen thousands of people make comments about our StolenID Search service. We appreciate everyone who sees value in the service as well as those who have questions.

    We feel that it makes good sense to help address all those questions in one common forum. Please visit our TrustedID blog (link below), as a venue to find answers to your questions/concerns related to our new service.
    http://blog.trustedid.com/?p=311

    Thanks!
    Scott Mitic
    CEO, TrustedID

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.