Social Security Numbers Easily Cracked

Researchers at have developed www.mcafee.com/activate a reliable method for predicting Social Security mcafee.com/activate product key numbers, using information from social networking sites www.mcafee/activate, data brokers, voter registration www.mcafee.com/activate product key lists www.mcafee.com/activate download, online white pages, and the publicly available Social Security Administration’s Death Master File.

Originally,on a Social Security card represented the state in which a person had initially applied for their card. Numbers www.mcafee.com/activate product key started in the northeast and moved westward. This meant that people born on the East Coast were assigned www.mcafee/activate the lowest numbers and those born on the West Coast www.mcafee.com/activate were assigned the mcafee.com/activate product key highest numbers. Before 1986, people were rarely www.mcafee.com/activate download assigned a Social Security number until age 14 or so, since the numbers were used for income tracking purposes.

The Carnegie Mellon researchers were www.mcafee.com/activate able to guess the first five digits of a Social mcafee.com/activate product key Security number on their first attempt for 44% of people born after 1988. For those in less populated states, the researches had a 90% success rate www.mcafee/activate. In fewer than 1,000 attempts, the  www.mcafee.com/activate product key researchers www.mcafee.com/activate download could identify a complete Social Security number, “making SSNs akin to 3-digit financial PINs.” The researches concluded, “Unless mitigating strategies are implemented, the predictability of SSNs exposes people born after 1988 to risks of identify theft on mass scales.”

While the researchers’ work is certainly an accomplishment, the potential to predict Social Security numbers is the www.mcafee.com/activate product key least of our problems. Social Security  www.mcafee/activate numbers can be found in unprotected file cabinets and databases in thousands of government offices www.mcafee.com/activate download, corporations mcafee.com/activate product key, and educational institutions www.mcafee.com/activate.

The problem stems from that fact that our existing system www.mcafee.com/activate download of identification is seriously outdated. We rely on nine www.mcafee.com/activate product key digits as a primary identifier www.mcafee/activate, the key to the kingdom, despite the fact that our Social Security numbers have no physical relationship to who we actually are. mcafee.com/activate product key This problem can www.mcafee.com/activate only be remedied by incorporating multiple levels of authentication into our identification process.

With more than 11 million victims just last www.mcafee/activate year, identity theft www.mcafee.com/activate download is a serious concern. McAfee Identity www.mcafee.com/activate product key Protection offers proactive identity surveillance, lost wallet protection, and alerts when mcafee.com/activate product key suspicious activity is detected www.mcafee.com/activate on your financial accounts. Visit CounterIdentityTheft.com to educate and protect yourself.