Researcher Easily Steals Thousands of Identities

A researcher performing social engineering exploits on behalf of several U.S. banks and other firms in the past year has “stolen” thousands of identities with a 100 percent success rate.

Joshua Perrymon, hacking director for PacketFocus Security Solutions and CEO of RedFlag Security, says organizations typically are focused on online identity theft from their data resources, and don’t think about how the same data can literally walk out the door with a criminal posing as an auditor or a computer repairman. He once walked out of a client site carrying their U.S. mail tray with 500 customer statements inside it, he says.