Social Security Numbers Not as Secure as One May Think
July 7, 2009 – 10:13 am
Your Social Security number (or SSN) has always been the holy grail to id theft thieves. It is your most valuable number and the one that fraud artists need to unlock your identity for their own devices. Many people keep their SSN under lock and key — and for good reason — but what if I told you identity thieves may not even need to see it to get it?
It’s a scary thought — that con artists can unlock your entire credit history, medical records, and billings without even getting a glimpse of your SSN, but that’s exactly what a recent study by Carnegie Mellon University proved. “Social Security numbers can be predicted with high accuracy from an individual’s state and date of birth – information that is often publicly available on social networking sites – raising the risk of identity theft,” according to a story published on MXLogic.com.
Alessandro Acquisti, a professor of information technology at Carnegie Mellon, and another researcher used data obtained from the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File to determine a statistical pattern able to predict SSNs. But not to a dependable percentage, right? According to researchers, they were able to identify all nine SSN numbers for 8.5% of people born after 1988 in fewer than 1,000 attempts. Even more impressive, they identified the first five SSN digits of 44% of individuals born after 1988 in one attempt.
If your jaw didn’t just hit the floor then it may be wired shut. Sure the study only went after people born after 1988 (which would currently effect those 21 and under), but it sure sends up a warning flag. Hackers and identity thieves are always coming up with new methods. Who’s to say they don’t have their own algorithm already similar to the one used by Carnegie Mellon? The ability to control your identity is out of your hands. Make sure you have a preventative service like LifeLock to safeguard your good name.
