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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Registered at SSA.GOV? Good for You, But Keep Your Guard Up

Summary: Identity thieves called the Social Security Administration impersonating Ruth Eckenstein and opened a retirement claim in her name, producing a pending $11,665 one-time withdrawal routed to a Green Dot prepaid debit card. The Eckensteins had already registered MySocialSecurity accounts, and resolving the fraudulent claim took more than four hours at an SSA office in Oklahoma City, after which a 1099 form still reported the payment to the IRS.

What's compelling: The identifiers needed to open the claim - birthday, place of birth, mother's maiden name, address and phone number - are largely free online or sold in the cybercrime underground for about the price of a coffee, and an SSA Office of Inspector General review counted more than 58,000 MySSA fraud allegations between February 2013 and February 2016.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Fraud & Scams
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