The Future of Identity Theft

"What is Identity theft?" asked the average user. "Well, it is when someone takes your name and data and pretends to be you. You don't need to worry, it only happens to the rich guys." replied the 'optimistic' software guy.

Identity theft is a serious crime and more than the crime itself, is the effect of it on you.

According to Wikipedia, identity theft is defined as:

"Identity theft is the deliberate use of someone else's identity, usually as a method to gain a financial advantage or obtain credit and other benefits in the other person's name, and perhaps to the other person's disadvantage or loss.."

Naturally, everyone has an identity attached towards 3 time dimensions. The Past, Present and Future. Similarly, identity theft has evolved along with us and the technology available at the disposal of the good and the bad.

In the past, shoulder-surfing was the crux of stealing data. It was simply pick-pocketing someone's lock screen pass-code or email password. And there you have it. Access to most of the victim's credentials.

That is all it was before. Nothing except a string of characters, most often "password" or someone's birthday or a pet's name that would protect our most personal secrets and financial details.

Now, today is a gift, that is why it is called the Present. A gift indeed! With the advances in technology and people's general desire for easy access to their security log-ins, etc.- introducing Bio-metric systems. Currently, we have many devices using the well-known finger-print reader for lightning fast logins and much better security. Premium devices are now bringing in Iris Scanners and Facial recognition on a much deeper level than either you or I can comprehend.

This is all fine and dandy. Who doesn't love more easy to use security features? These features have also come into banks, national ID systems, etc. to make their adoption and use easier for the average person. But, has anyone considered the security side of things? Most organisations take security to the highest level in order to protect your data from leaks. But, as times change, so do techniques to exploit protective measures.

This is not that bad right now, the worst that could happen is details of your general social habits and personal details like address, phone no., where you visit often, who you talk to, etc could be stolen. Pretty bad eh? Not really, if you consider the greater scheme of things.

Now, we address the elephant in the room. The Future.

What makes this a big deal? We can't even predict the future yet can we?

Ofcourse, we cannot, but we can make pretty good predictions.

What will future user authentication look like (Artist's concept)? Entirely Bio-metric to the level of DNA.

DNA type matching users. Disturbing isn't it? We have no choice but to get there. The technology to exploit simple security measures is catching up. If it has not yet, it most likely will. What becomes scary after that is Identity theft of your entire identity.

With 3D printers becoming more and more precise, one day we can hit nano-scale precision on printed articles. Imagine if we could 3D print organs? Well, there isn't much left to the imagination. Doctors are currently doing that right now in order to save patients.

This technology in the wrong hands though? Imagine, 3D printed fingers - complete with fingerprint. Imagine 3D printed eyes, complete with iris/retina that is a duplicate of yours. Human cloning? That is a different thing. You don't need to clone a human, when your average 'soft' robot helper can be equipped with a finger identical to yours.

Where did all the data come from? No, they will not chop off fingers for their 3D printing. It will probably come from data servers where your biometric data is stored.

Identity theft of your DNA. Need I say more? Gene Editting is now possible. Imagine the future.

No need to panic though, for we have security researchers hard at work preventing the bad guys from getting at our data. We need more information security. The future looks bleak, until we can guarantee that our authentication data remains safe 100% of the time.