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from the issue of March 4, 2004
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UNL committee will address safeguards
Identity theft is no laughing matter
BY MICHAEL CARR, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
We’ve all seen the Citibank commercial with the woman speaking with a man’s voice about how he cleaned out her checking account and built a robot to take to the prom. Funny, right?
Well, according to the Federal Trade Commission, almost 10 million Americans discovered that they were the victim of some sort of identity theft in 2003. In 2002, 1,530 Nebraskans filed formal ID theft and fraud complaints with the FTC. About 49 percent of those were from the Omaha and Lincoln areas, and the cost of the identity theft to these Nebraskans was more than $700,000.
Suddenly, ID theft is no laughing matter.
To address these matters, the federal government passed the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, which, among other things, requires universities and colleges to enact safeguards against the theft and misuse of nonpublic student financial information such as Social Security numbers and bank account numbers. To ensure that UNL is compliant with GLBA, Associate Vice Chancellor Kent Hendrickson has formed a small committee charged with assessing and developing plans for strengthening the current safeguards at UNL to fight identity theft.
“We have a responsibility to our students and to the community to do as much as we can to make sure that confidential data stays that way,” Hendrickson said.
The U.S. Department of Education has even issued an ID theft warning specifically aimed at college students. It lists several tips for keeping personal data private, including:
• Memorize your Social Security number and passwords.
• Don’t carry your Social Security card or birth certificate with you.
• Don’t use your date of birth as your password.
• Shred pre-approved credit applications and other financial documents before discarding them.
• Never give personal or financial information over the phone or Internet unless you initiated the contact.
• Never e-mail personal or financial information to anyone unless you have first encrypted it.
To support these efforts, the U.S. Department of Justice has made a “Stop ID Theft Now” video available on CD/ROM for free. For a copy to view with your staff or department, visit http://csn.nebraska.edu/security/ or e-mail mcarr@nebraska.edu.
This series
This story is one in a recurring series by Michael Carr, Computing Services Network information security officer for the University of Nebraska. He will discuss computer news and safety.
GO TO: ISSUE OF MARCH 4
NEWS HEADLINES FOR MARCH 4
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Identity theft is no laughing matter
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Survey builds rapport
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