How to steal someone's identity and access their bank account online in 7 easy steps.
Well known security adviser, Professor Herbert Thompson, set out to show how easy it is to steal a person's identity and access their financial accounts.
Starting with just a name and knowledge of where his victim banked, he followed a simple procedure.
Step 1: A Google search found a blog and an old resume containing information about grandparents, pets, hometown, old email addresses and a gmail address.
Step 2: Checking the bank password recovery feature he found he needed access to her email accounts to reset the password.
Step 3: Attempting to reset the victim's gmail account, Google sent its password reset email to an old college email account and revealed the .edu domain.
Step 4: To reset the college email password, he used the information found on the resume but still needed a birthdate.
Step 5: Traffic court records often provide birthdates of people who have been stopped for speeding, but his victim had a clean record.
Step 6: But her blog revealed the date of her birthday and it was easy to guess the year based on when she graduated.
Step 7: Once the college email password was reset, it was easy to reset the gmail password, which gave access to the bank account after a few personal questions easily answered by perusing her blogs and Facebook information.
Read factlets by: RSS feed Email feed