When 60 million identity numbers of South Africans living and dead, along with addresses and contact numbers, were exposed on the internet last month, it should have set off loud warning signals within every large business dealing with consumers. The information exposed, sometimes even including employment details, is precisely the kind that is used by fraudsters to commit identity theft. In other words, they can use the information to validate a fake identity through a bank or mobile network operator, for example. That already happens with alarming frequency, often through collusion, but more often due to the negligence of service providers. The perpetrators are often brought to book, largely because they themselves lack the skills of career criminals. Now imagine that the professionals, the syndicates and the global cyber-criminal gangs get their hands on this treasure trove of data. Imagine they concoct a wide range of schemes to exploit the data for identity theft. Because, if y...
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