This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube news-interview segment (title: "1 of 7 SSNs used by 2 or more people. Robert Siciliano for @McAfee.com, -Counter Identity Theft.com") published 2010-12-03. It features Shepard Smith (host, Studio B) interviewing Robert Siciliano, an identity-theft expert at McAfee, about a study from ID Analytics finding that roughly 1 in 7 Social Security numbers are tied to more than one name. The discussion covers the scope of the problem, how victims typically discover misuse (denied credit, employment/tax anomalies, medical/insurance issues), and recommended responses and protections (credit freezes, identity-theft protection services, and remediation resources).
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Megan, thanks. Have a great weekend. The news begins anew on Studio B, and today in box number 1, the controversial site WikiLeaks struggling to find a home on the web, and its founder is calling the main suspect in the leak, a man who goes by Bradass87, an unparalleled hero. Brand new developments just ahead. Box number 2, do you know where your Social Security number has been? A fraud-fighting firm has found that there's a 1 in 7 chance that someone else besides you has used it. Well, take just a handful of people and there's a good chance at least one of those security numbers has been stolen. It may have happened to you and you wouldn't even know it. That's coming up next. A new warning today about the dangers of identity theft. There's a new study out today that shows there's a 1 in 7 chance that somebody else has used your Social Security number besides you. 1 in 7. That's according to the fraud-fighting firm named ID Analytics. It found 40 million of the 290 million Social Security numbers have been attached to more than one name. And the kicker here, if it's happened to you, the IRS likely knows about it. Social Security Administration as well, but the odds are none of them will tell you. Joining us now is Robert Siciliano. He's an identity theft expert with internet security company McAfee. Good to see you.
Hey, Shep.
If they know, why wouldn't they tell us?
Well, there are privacy laws in place that preclude them from being able to provide you with that information. Even if it's your data that somebody else is using, it's another human being that's doing it, therefore they have laws against telling you.
But they're using it fraudulently, right? And they could be doing all kinds of things to my credit and on and on and on, but they don't fill us in.
No, they don't. And part of the problem too is that the government is actually benefiting from this problem that we have. There are billions of dollars in reserves as a result of people using your Social paying into Social Security and paying federal taxes, and the government has this, you know, big cash that they're not, you know, they're not going to give back to you.
What do you make of the numbers in this survey? 1 out of 7 Social Security numbers sounds like an enormous number, doesn't it?
Yeah, it certainly does. ID Analytics did this study. They have 290 million Social Security numbers in their database. Major corporations that filter credit reports through them, and they checked their data and found that, you know, as many as 40 million Social Security numbers are tied to more than one name. That means either clerical errors or identity thieves using your information, your social, and applying for various accounts under your name and even getting jobs.
It's my understanding that most people don't find out about this until they do one of the top 5 things that you've listed for us, and right off the top is get new credit.
Yeah, getting new credit like getting a loan, getting a credit card. If you're denied credit, then that's how you find out that your identity has been stolen. Also, employment. If you find out that somebody's been paying taxes into your taxes or they file taxes in your name, that's obviously a problem because they get your refund. And various insurances, if you are denied insurance or your premiums go up as a result of information showing up that's not supposed to be there. Medical fraud, someone gets medical procedures under your name. These are major problems, and of course filing taxes. Uh, once they're filing taxes under your name, uh, you know, that creates a whole set of new problems for you.
That sounds like a horri— if you find out that this has happened to you, who do you call? What do you do? I'm guessing it's a complicated process.
Unfortunately, the administrative process to restore a compromised identity is generally beyond most people's abilities. Uh, certainly you can get on the phone, you can lick a lot of stamps, you can send a lot of letters, you can, you know, do all the different things that you need to do to restore it. But organizations like the Identity Theft Resource Center, they work with you on that behalf. You call all these different organizations to, you know, basically rectify the problem, go through their litany of paperwork. Some of the best things that you can do to prevent this from happening in the first place is get a credit freeze. A credit freeze locks down your identity in a way that helps to prevent new accounts from being opened up under your name. And I'm also a big fan of identity theft protection, 'cause with identity theft protection, it monitors your credit looking for any increase into your credit, and then generally with these types of services, they'll also restore a compromised identity, and that could take anywhere from an hour to 600 hours or more. And studies show that as many as 1 in 4 people never fully restore a compromised identity. They deal with it for the rest of their lives.
Wow, rough stuff. Robert Siciliano from McAfee, great to see you. Thank you.
