The Fraudian Slip Podcast ITRC - The Rise in Identity Fraud - Special Guest LexisNexis

Show Transcript

Welcome to The Fraudian Slip, the Identity Theft Resource Center’s (ITRC) podcast, where we talk about all-things identity compromise, crime and fraud that impact people and businesses.   

This month, June, we’re going to dig into a trend impacting consumers, businesses, government agencies and other institutions. That trend is the steady growth of cybercriminals using stolen information to commit identity crimes. How can you prevent identity fraud? 

Identity theft occurs when a person’s or business’s information is stolen. Identity fraud is when that information is misused, and there is a lot of misuse going on these days. At the ITRC, in the final ten months of 2020, we helped about 750 individuals who were the victims of unemployment identity fraud – which is to say a criminal used their personal information to apply for unemployment benefits in their home state or other states.  

On June 2, the ITRC surpassed the number of identity-related unemployment fraud victims for 2020 in only six months, with four months left until the enhanced benefits that are attracting criminals expire.  

At the root of the rise in identity fraud is the billions of bits of personal information available to cybercriminals that can be used to pretend to be just about any adult in the U.S. While that may sound intimidating, there are groups whose mission is to help prevent information misuse and to ensure people “are who they say they are” to make sure benefits and privileges go to the actual person who needs them. They ensure the benefits do not go to a professional imposter halfway around the world, an organized crime ring or just garden variety criminals down the street. 

Helping us make sense of how you can prevent identity fraud is the ITRC’s CEO Eva Velasquez and Haywood J. “Woody” Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Special Services, a leading provider of information used to mitigate risks.   

We talked with Haywood J. “Woody” Talcove about the following: 

• What LexisNexis does to help mitigate risk.
• The impact of identity fraud in the government and business sectors.
• What can be done to prevent and mitigate identity fraud by government and business (information as both a risk and the solution).

We talked with Eva Velasquez about the following: 

• The rise of identity fraud and data breach trends.
• The impact of identity fraud on consumers and the ITRC’s 2021 Consumer Aftermath Report.
• How can you prevent identity fraud?

For answers to all of these questions and more on how you can prevent identity fraud, listen to this week’s episode of The Fraudian Slip Podcast.   

Contact the ITRC 

You can learn more about identity fraud as well as get help if you have been the victim of an identity crime by visiting the ITRC’s website at www.idtheftcenter.org. While you are there, sign up for our emails that alert you to the latest scams, monthly data breach updates and tips to protect your identity. 

Be sure and join us next week for our sister podcast, the Weekly Breach Breakdown, and next month for another episode of The Fraudian Slip.