Phishing techniques, like many social engineering techniques, are designed to frighten you into overriding your internal caution button and to get you to take immediate action, usually by clicking on a link conveniently provided in an email. This latest scam is no different. Over the weekend, two staffers received claiming to be from a major cell phone carrier with the alarming subject line “Account Locked.”

“ID theft is a growing problem all across the country, and we’ve come to find out that the tax system isn’t immune…They’ve figured out that just like they can steal credit card numbers, they can file false refunds.”

A 10-count indictment was unsealed, charging six people with various offenses related to a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of at least $1.7 million in fraudulently obtained tax returns, often filed in the names of recently deceased taxpayers.

Remember the days when a phone was for calling people? Well, those days are long gone now. One of the necessities the smartphone has taken on to replace is the wallet. A smartphone has already challenged the necessity of regular phones, computers, camcorders, cameras and GPS devices, so why not a wallet too?

Highlights from a recent FBI identity theft case. This article outlines the charges being brought against two individuals for an identity theft scheme allegedly affecting nearly 90 individuals.

You’re shopping at the mall with your children when one of them suddenly disappears. What do you do? A new tool from the FBI can help. The recently launched Child ID app—the first mobile application created by the FBI—provides a convenient place to electronically store photos and vital information about your children so it’s on hand if you need it.

Unfortunately, the IRS is able to criminally investigate only a small percentage of tax-related identity theft cases due to its limited resources. In 2010, its Criminal Investigations Division investigated only 4,700 cases of all kinds, not just identity thefts.

If Benjamin Franklin were alive today, he might revise his often-repeated quote to reflect a current threat: “...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and identity theft.”

By Nikki Junker, Identity Theft Resource Center It is much easier to hack a human than a computer. Computer hackers must be incredibly knowledgeable about information security in order to find a weakness in a computer system which they can then exploit in order to get to the information they want. A human hacker already knows its targets faults. They are the same as his own because his target is a human as well. This technique of personal exploitation is called “social engineering” and it is one of three ways identity thieves carry out their crimes. Social engineering, however, is much easier and less costly for crooks than cyber attacks or physical theft. The following are ways that identity thieves will use social engineering (personal manipulation in order to gain information) to commit identity theft.

By John Sileo, Identity Theft Author and Data Security Keynote Speaker Information is the currency and lifeblood of the modern economy and, unlike the industrial revolution, data doesn’t shut down at dinnertime. As a result, the trend is towards hyper-mobile computing – smartphones and tablets – that connect us to the Internet and a limitless transfusion of information 24-7.