by Daniel J. Gansle

Created on: September 02, 2008   Last Updated: August 13, 2011

There's no doubt about it. Identity theft and the lifting of data is a huge problem today. A recent survey suggests that an estimated forty-nine million adults claim to have been notified as to the loss, theft, or improper disclosure of their personal information. The survey cited that a significant 19 percent representing abut 9.3 million persons do believe that something harmful happened to them. Among this group who indicate that something happened to them, the following occurred:

• Merchandise was charged in their name (43%)
• Some kind of fraud was committed that cost them some money (35%)
• Money was taken from their bank account (18%)
• A credit card was taken out in their name (11%)
• Someone posed to get government benefit or service (8%)(1)

Anybody who has had their identity stolen will tell you how utterly stressful of an experience it is. Hours, days, weeks, even months are spent frantically attempting to contact a myriad of creditors and trying to rectify the situation. It becomes even more stressful if your bank account is tampered with, or worse, depleted.

But unwelcome intrusions on our personal information are not simply limited to ID theft itself. In a bizarre tale of personal computer file piracy, Stephen Foster and Seb Ramsay of The Manchester Evening News recount the story of a horrified woman who quite literally had her computer files taken for ransom:

INTERNET pirates are hijacking home computers through the web and demanding payment to return valuable files. Police are investigating the emerging threat after a Rochdale nurse had her personal computer "webjacked" by the online criminals. Helen Barrow logged on to her PC to find that all her files including family photos and vital work for her nursing degree had been deleted and transferred into a folder protected by a 30-digit password. She also found a new file, called "INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO GET YOUR FILES BACK". This said she would be emailed the password if she paid for some pharmaceutical drugs from a website. Computer experts say the criminals have developed a new type of virus, nicknamed "ransomware", which effectively blackmails its victims.(2)

Even more alarming are recent reports of cell phone spyware that allows a criminal to remotely control all aspects of a person's cell phone, even if the device is turned off. The intruder can easily retrieve data, listen to room conversations through the unit's microphone, track their victim

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