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.

By John Sileo, Identity Theft Author and Speaker Online shopping during the holidays is a convenient, green, inexpensive way to share the joy of the season. In 2010, Cyber Monday was the heaviest online spending day in history and the first to surpass the billion-dollar threshold ($1.028 billion). But as you gear up for the holidays (yes, it’s here already), don’t forget to take simple precautions to keep your credit card, banking and identity information safe.

By Chuck Whitlock, Identity Theft Author and Investigative Reporter Once malware finds its way onto a mobile device, it’s possible that the device can be controlled remotely by a hacker or network of hackers; once that happens, the data on the device can be transferred, and precious, unprotected information can be sold to identity thieves. With this vulnerability in mind, the assumption users make is that the applications that store data like passwords and user names employ some form of encryption when writing the data to the device’s memory.

By Chuck Whitlock, Identity Theft Author and Investigative Reporter Identity thieves are opportunists who don’t care what type of equipment you’re using. You can be brought to your knees by identity theft on your smartphone or tablet as well as your laptop or PC. Malware, computer software that can relay personal data or hand over your computer's control to a cyber criminal, has long been an issue for anyone who has connected a personal computer to the Internet. The concern about malware infection should logically follow Internet users as they walk away from their personal computers and dive headfirst into the freedom of life with a smartphone.