Think a human stealing your personal information is bad? It’s even worse when a computer does it. Online identity theft is a real threat. While humans can only work for a number of hours a day, computers can be on task 24/7. They also have the potential to pull millions – yes you read that right – of records at a time.
The worst part of all is that the computer that steals your information could be the one that’s sitting on your desk right this minute. If your computer is infected with malware, your machine could be delivering your information to the botnet behind your back.
The botnet is not a small project created by one hacker in his basement either. Researchers from the University of California looked into a Torpig botnet around this time last year and found that the malware associated with it collected 56,000 passwords from infected machines in just one hour’s time. And, over 10 days, they found that the bot received login information for over 8,000 financial accounts, which was delivered to data collectors known as “botnet herders†— really just a fancy name for sophisticated identity thieves.
Some thieves even opened their bots up to others in a rental type relationship to earn more money. Researchers estimated that whomever had access to the other end of the bot could generate up to $8.3 million in profits from disseminating this information alone.
They also discovered a rather sobering fact: The people that had their login information stolen and distributed for the most part did not maintain their computers well and did not use secure passwords. They also had their computers “remember†the passwords and/or used the same password for more than one account.
While doing such things may be easier for you; as you can tell, it makes the malware’s job easier as well. So always take the time to make smart passwords that contain letters, numbers and special characters if possible, and change them at least twice a year. Be especially careful to do this for ones that are associated with secure accounts, such as anything related to your finances.
Also, make sure you have the latest in antivirus protection on your machine, since this can help to keep the malware from getting installed in the first place. One the malware’s there, it can spread like, well, a virus, infecting other machines associated with yours over the Internet. This means that even if you don’t accidentally download malware yourself you can have it hand delivered to you.
A final thing that you can do to help protect your computer, and ultimately your privacy, is to think about getting identity theft protection. That way you can find out if your personal information is making the rounds without the help of university researchers. You can have your plan email you or text you as soon as it sees something suspicious, or even something potentially suspicious. Be responsible or you may become a victim, like the nearly 10 million Americans that had their identities stolen in 2009.