Re: Open charges anywhere?
Post 1
There was probably an international arrest warrant against the guy who got transported to Portugal.
As to finding out if your identity has been stolen or not.... probably not if its just passport.
Identity thieves typically obtain and exploit personally identifiable information about individuals, or various credentials they use to authenticate themselves, in order to impersonate them. Examples include:
Rummaging through rubbish for personal information (
dumpster diving)
Retrieving personal data from redundant IT equipment and storage media including PCs, servers, PDAs, mobile phones, USB memory sticks and hard drives that have been disposed of carelessly at public dump sites, given away or sold on without having been properly sanitized
Using
public records about individual citizens, published in official registers such as electoral rolls
Stealing bank or credit cards, identification cards, passports, authentication tokens ... typically by
pickpocketing,
housebreaking or mail
theft
Skimming information from bank or credit cards using compromised or hand-held card readers, and creating clone cards
Using
'contactless' credit card readers to acquire data wirelessly from
RFID-enabled passports
Observing users typing their login credentials, credit/calling card numbers etc. into IT equipment located in public places (
shoulder surfing)
Stealing personal information from computers using
malware, particularly
Trojan horse keystroke logging programs or other forms of
spyware
Hacking computer networks, systems and databases to obtain personal data, often in large quantities
Exploiting
breaches that result in the publication or more limited disclosure of personal information such as names, addresses,
Social Security number or credit card numbers
Advertising bogus job offers in order to accumulate
resumes and applications typically disclosing applicants' names, home and email addresses, telephone numbers and sometimes their banking details
Exploiting insider access and abusing the rights of privileged IT users to access personal data on their employers' systems
Infiltrating organizations that store and process large amounts or particularly valuable personal information
Impersonating trusted organizations in emails, SMS text messages, phone calls or other forms of communication in order to dupe victims into disclosing their personal information or login credentials, typically on a fake corporate website or data collection form (
phishing)
Brute-force attacking weak passwords and using inspired guesswork to compromise weak password reset questions
Obtaining castings of fingers for falsifying
fingerprint identification.
Browsing
social networking websites for personal details published by users, often using this information to appear more credible in subsequent social engineering activities
Diverting victims' email or post in order to obtain personal information and credentials such as credit cards, billing and bank/credit card statements, or to delay the discovery of new accounts and credit agreements opened by the identity thieves in the victims' names
Using false pretenses to trick individuals, customer service representatives and help desk workers into disclosing personal information and login details or changing user passwords/access rights (
pretexting)
Stealing
cheques (checks) to acquire banking information, including account numbers and
bank routing numbers[14]
Guessing Social Security numbers by using information found on Internet social networks such as Facebook and MySpace
[15]
Low security/privacy protection on photos that are easily clickable and downloaded on
social networking sites.
Befriending strangers on social networks and taking advantage of their trust until private information are given.
