WK 6 ASSIGNMENT ************* DRAFT Thesis **********

Identity theft refers to the unauthorized use of another person’s information to make purchases or transactions. There are so many ways in which identity theft can be committed. Some fraudsters look for credit cards and bank accounts by sitting through trash bins. There are however other high technology methods which involve stealing of customer information by illegally accessing organizations’ databases. There are several types of identity theft which include child, financial, medical and criminal identity theft. Identity theft has become rampant in the United States of America especially because of the development of high technology (Lai et al., 2012). Although identity thieves have discovered new ways to steal your data, it is possible to significantly reduce the threat by being alert while using social media and being more careful when replying new emails.

Once identity thieves get hold of your personal information they can use it for their personal gain. This could be committing other crimes such as drug trafficking, laundering money, smuggling substances, entering a country and many other crimes. Actually, these fraudsters can use your identity to commit any imaginable crime. There are several serious and large consequences of for victims of identity theft even though none of the individual’s personal information may have been taken. Police can put you under suspicion if your identity has been used to commit a crime. It may be very difficult for the victims to prove their innocence if the police investigate them.

There are also so many issues concerning victims of financial fraud. You could end up in huge debts if someone uses your identity to do any monetary transaction. If the debts are not your responsibility and you can prove it then the liability for them will not be imposed in you. However, it is always very difficult in such a case to prove your innocence (Finklea, 2010).  Even if you are able to prove your innocence it becomes harder to clear incorrect information from your credit card. Credit agencies mandated to get rid of this information are very slow. You may get rejected for several credit opportunities by the time they correct the information in your credit card.

These rejections may significantly affect the credit decision of those people who may be doing a credit check on you in the future. If you are in such a situation it would be extremely difficult for you to get a loan, a new credit card or even mortgage. It becomes even difficult sometime for such victims to get a new phone contract. This makes it very important to spot such a fraud as early as possible. Normally, identity thieves do not physically harm the victims not unless there are issues to do with mugging and physical robbery. In an event that you happen to be a victim of physical robbery, this may leave you influenced both physically and mentally. If so then an unfortunate victim may have no say in the information that they could possibly make criminal damage guarantee the responsibility (Bilge, et al., 2009, April).

There are several ways in which we can reduce identity theft. First you should not give anyone your information. There are many identity thieves and scammers who will pretend to be representatives for local business, charity and bank or even debt collectors to convince you to give them your date of birth, street security number or social community number and any other personal information of interest. This scammer will try anything possible to convince you to give them your important information including calling, sending emails and the like. Be vigilant to avoid falling victim of this scammers (Jakobsson & Myers, 2006). 

  You should also avoid clicking on those links that you don’t trust their source. These Fraudsters can easily attract your attention by sending you mails that look like they are coming from individuals or organizations you know. When you come across such links avoid clicking them by all means possible. Instead it is recommended that you should roll your mouse over the link so that you can be able to view the URL destination you will be directed to. This methodology is more secure and can enable you to evade malware, phishing tricks, infections or malware to assemble your data. In the event that it turns out its phony, you can tell the business so they caution others.

Identity theft threat can also be reduced by creating strong passwords and monitoring your online accounts. If you have accounts in multiple sites it is important to use different password for each. You should also set up account notifications from those financial organizations you normally do business with. These notifications should also be set differently for the multiple accounts. Remaining up and coming on changes to your records is critical and a brisk notice sent to your brilliant gadget can have a significant effect in keeping up true serenity. There are additionally a lot of items out there that give credit and personality checking (Baase, 2012). 

Your mobile devices including your mobile phones and laptops should be protected with passwords. Mobile phones contain a lot of your personal information and therefore failure to protect them exposes you to a huge risk of identity theft. You can protect your device using two-factor identification and keeping its software updated. Always make sure that you’ve turned off your Bluetooth when not in use. It is also possible for others to see your data when you are using public WI-FI. Therefore, you need to be careful when downloading files since they may contain malware.

We will use several data collection methods for this research. They include observation, interviews, questionnaires and surveys, documents and records. Observation is a good source to provide additional information for the research. It gives a platform for the study of frequency counts on target behavior, situation dynamics and other research requirements. It produces both quantitative and qualitative data. Interviews will be conducted through inquiry. We will use both structured and open interviews. Structured interviews are very essential since they are based on personal opinions. The interviews will be conducted either in person or through telephone. The questions involved will be clear, focused and will encourage open ended response (Romanosky et al., 2011).

We will also use questionnaires for this research. The questionnaires will be in both multiple choices and open ended. After they are filled they can either be delivered to our designated collection centers or send by email. In order to maximize their return rates, we will make sure that they are as clear and simple as possible. Results from questionnaires are always easy to analyze and also Pretests/Posttests can be compared and analyzed. Documents and record will involve examining existing information of meeting minutes, newsletters, financial records, attendance logs, report and databases. This would help us study the history of our target group LoPucki, 2001).

After data collection we will proceed to conduct its analysis. Some of the methods we will use for the analysis include regression Analysis, Hypotheses testing; content analysis and narrative analysis. Regression analysis is very effective when it comes to predicting the future from the results of the study. It will help us measure the relationships between independent and depended variables. It will also help us uncover sections that can be optimized. We will also test the hypothesis. This will help us compare the data obtained in the research against our initial assumption. In this case we will be able to find out whether being alert of distrustful emails can reduce identity theft.

Content analysis will involve techniques such as color coding for specific themes. It will help us understand the overall trend in the qualitative data. It is an efficient method especially when dealing with open-ended surveys, questionnaire and interview data. Lastly, we will also use narrative analysis. This will help us understand the culture of the organizations of the research interest. It will mainly only focus on how ideas and stories are communicated throughout the organization. This will include employee’s satisfaction, customer perceptions about the organization and how processes of operation are viewed. It tends to be helpful while mulling over changes to corporate culture or arranging new promoting systems (Kirkland & Kumhyr, 2009). 

This analysis will help us interpret the data and make recommendations. While interviewing the employees for a specific organization, we may conduct analysis for the organization. Employees who are satisfied with their jobs are aware about identity theft and will do everything possible to avoid falling victims. Those employees who are not satisfied with their jobs will not be cautious and therefore they may end up being victims. Hypothesis testing should enable us to come up with a conclusion for our research. If our assumptions match the final findings then we will have achieved our research objectives and we can proceed to recommend the various ways in which we can reduce identity theft.

We expect the results of this research to confirm that it is possible to significantly reduce the threat by being alert while using social media and being more careful when replying new emails. Its outcome should also show that identity theft can be reduced by the various methods outlined in this paper

References

Lai, F., Li, D., & Hsieh, C. T. (2012). Fighting identity theft: The coping perspective. Decision Support Systems, 52(2), 353-363.

Finklea, K. M. (2010). Identity theft: Trends and issues. DIANE Publishing.

LoPucki, L. M. (2001). Human identification theory and the identity theft problem. Tex. L. Rev., 80, 89.

Bilge, L., Strufe, T., Balzarotti, D., & Kirda, E. (2009, April). All your contacts are belong to us: automated identity theft attacks on social networks. In Proceedings of the 18th international conference on World wide web (pp. 551-560). ACM.

Chou, N., Ledesma, R., Teraguchi, Y., & Mitchell, J. C. (2004, February). Client-Side Defense Against Web-Based Identity Theft. In NDSS.

Romanosky, S., Telang, R., & Acquisti, A. (2011). Do data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30(2), 256-286.

Baase, S. (2012). A gift of fire. Pearson Education Limited.

Jakobsson, M., & Myers, S. (Eds.). (2006). Phishing and countermeasures: understanding the increasing problem of electronic identity theft. John Wiley & Sons.

Kirkland, D. C., & Kumhyr, D. B. (2009). U.S. Patent No. 7,548,886. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.