Ahh, the Irony. Fraudster Poses as Protector Against Identity Theft

Ahh, the irony. A fraudster in Ontario is reportedly taking advantage of his victims by posing as a government official that's, you guessed it, offering his protective services against identity theft.

The Ontario Consumer Protection Branch says that those who have already received a call report that it's an automated telephone message that warns they might be victims of identity theft, and advises the person to press "9" for help. Someone then comes on the line, asking the person to provide their banking information so their funds can be transferred to a "secure" account (i.e. the fraudster's pocket). The fraudsters claim to be part of the Consumer Protection Bureau of Canada; an institution that actually does not exist!

I must admit: fraudsters are getting clever, now preying on the very fear that has driven people away from being duped by them. Although I have faith that most people should already know this, the Ontario Consumer Protection Branch reiterates that it would never, under any circumstances, transfer someone's money from one account to another; nor request someone's personal banking information.

The Ontario Consumer Protection Branch says that anyone who's received such a call should contact their local police, or Phonebusters at 1-888-495-8501. For more information on this, and other scams, call 1-800-889-9768 or locally, 416-326-8800.

[Photo courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/]

Passport Canada Website Glitch Lets Man Access the Personal Information of Others

Passport Canada's Website reportedly had a security flaw that could allow applicants to change one character in the Web address to view other people's application forms, including private information like social insurance numbers and home addresses. It was a man in Ontario who made the discovery.

According to Reuters, Passport Canada has since fixed the discrepancy, and says it only revealed a "portion of the application", and only showed the information of others who were also filling out the application online at the same time. This wouldn't be such a big deal if there weren't tons of people filling out passport applications all the time in Canada. Just walk into any Passport Canada office and you'll see what I mean.

If this doesn't express the importance of Web security, I don't know what will. There are many large corporations that store tons of personal information about customers, yet don't invest in the proper security measures to ensure that this information can't be easily hacked. The old WEP security standard simply doesn't cut it anymore, with any old 13-year-old computer geek able to hack into networks supposedly "protected" by this standard. WPA is the much more secure method. Businesses that haven't yet switched over should seriously consider doing so; especially if you tend to store private, customer information in your computer databases. The other solution: don't store personal information about your customers. Why is this relevant anyway?

As for Passport Canada, the Canadian government insists that the Website's security system has now been enhanced to prevent any type of unauthorized entry; and claims that the situation with the Ontario man was an "isolated anomaly". And here I was thinking that you needed to be some sort of Web genuis to hack into personal information online. Apparently it's possible to be one keystroke away from stealing someone's life. And we wonder why identity theft is so rampant in our country...

Will You Pay By Chip or Stripe?

Us Canucks certainly love our debit and credit cards: carrying around cash is just sooo passé! Of course along with electronic payments comes the risk of fraud, identity theft, and counterfeiting: an issue that has been running rampant in the country over the past few years. An Ipsos Reid study in February 2005 reported that two millions Canadians had been affected by identity theft. In an effort to reduce such incidences, we’re seeing more and more chip-enabled terminals surfacing.

What are these? Debit or credit cards with chips embedded in them, such as RBC’s Platinum Avion VISA card, are inserted into a chip-enabled machine, and remain in the machine until the customer has completed the transaction. With standard magnetic stripe cards, the customer swipes his card, or inserts and immediately removes it, then proceeds with the transaction. According to RBC, chip-embedded cards provide “increased protection against counterfeiting and skimming fraud”.

A trial run using cards with this new technology is set to take place in Kitchener-Waterloo, ON this fall, in hopes to eventually roll out the technology across all cards, ATMs, and retail terminals in Canada. RBC, who has just announced 10 million successful chip transactions, says it plans to switch from the standard signature method to a PIN code for its Avion VISA customers in the future. Moneris Solutions already offers more than 75,000 chip-enabled point-of-sale units across Canada.

Although I’ve luckily never been the victim of a major identity theft incident, I have had unauthorized purchases made on a credit card for minimal amounts. When asked how this could possibly have happened (after all, I knew for a fact that, at the date and time of the purchases, I was at home with my wallet, and VISA card, in my possession!), my bank told me that a “fake” version of my card could simply have been made by someone skimming the information from a machine. It made me shudder to even think someone could, and would, do such a thing.

Hopefully a Canada-wide chip-based system will help put a stop to identity theft and credit card fraud.