Page 22 - Cyber Warnings

been erased, you may lose all your personal information and the information
might get into wrong hands.

• Selling or Donating IT Assets - When you sell or donate your IT assets such as
your computer, laptop, desktop, Table PCs, or smartphones without permanently
removing the data, well, the chances are that you may become a victim of
Identity Theft as the recipient may recover data from the devices.

The Importance of Data if We Sell Our Hard Drive – If we sell our hard drive wherein
all personal data was saved, to an unknown person whom we chanced upon online
through an e-commerce site, we may easily become a victim of Identity Theft.

Although we ensure that the drive is formatted before selling, this, however, does not
erase the data completely.

Now, the unknown person may take advantage of this and make you the victim of online
Identity theft. This is possible by recovering the data and then misusing it for financial or
personal gains.

Thus, before selling the hard drive, you should ensure that the drive has been
completely erased. The same applies in cases when disposing off hard drives.

Types of Identity Theft: Statistics

Type of Online Identity Theft Percentage

Fraud in Government documents or benefits 49.2%

Fraud in Credit cards 15.8%

Fraud in Phone or Utilities 9.9%

Fraud in Bank (Includes fraud involving savings, checking, and 5.9%
other deposit accounts and electronic fund transfers.)

Identity Theft attempted 3.7%

Fraud in Loans 3.5%

Fraud in Employment 3.3%

Others 19.2%

Table: Statistics showing the way information of victims is misused

22 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – July 2017 Edition
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