Identity Theft and Money

In class, we defined identity theft as the stealing of other people's financial, medical, personal etc. identities. People who commit this crime use other people's identities in order to get what they want and this can include anything from money to medical care/drugs.

According to the Huffington Post, 2013 was the year that the healthcare industry experienced more breaches in their database than in previous years. Even now that it is 2014, it doesn't look like this issue will die down or completely go away. If anything, it will continue to get worse.

Money is the reason behind this. If you have someone's medial identity, including their SSN, name, address and health ID numbers, then it can be sold on the 'online black market' for fifty dollars. The monetary value of a medical identity can act as an incentive for someone who is good at hacking into databases and can easily access people's medical information. Since a federal mandate made it so that healthcare facilities would have to keep electronic medical records to be reimbursed for Medicaid and Medicare, this made it easier for cyber criminals to get access to this information.

Protecting your medical identity is not an easy task, especially since your medical information can be found in various places and are accessible to the people who know how to get to them. However, there are some things you can do to monitor your medical identity to make sure it hasn't been stolen and these things include: shedding all of your paperwork before throwing it away, keep your insurance card in a safe place at all times, check your credit report annually, and just remain vigilant.

There are chances that you might not be a victim of this kind of identity theft or any other but there are also chances that you will. That said, being careful online and in real life is always a good thing. Remember to dispose of all of your personal info in a manner that will leave it illegible to someone who might potentially go through your trash. Keep her wallet close to you at all times, especially if it contains your insurance card and SSN. Make sure to password protect your phone, tablet, and laptop. Also, try not to keep the same password for long periods of time.

There are people out there who will steal your identity for numerous reasons and while not everyone you meet online or in real life are out to steal your identity, you just have to remember that identity thieves are liars; one of their main purposes is deceive someone or something whether that be insurance companies, the government, law enforcement or someone they care about. There are numerous reasons why people steal other people's identities, and many of those reasons are self-serving. The point is none of those matter once you become the victim, and since identity theft, of any kind, can be expensive to cure, it is better to be safe than sorry.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-ross/finding-a-cure-for-medica_b_6152426.html