Schneier - Identity Theft on the Job Market

Identity theft is getting more subtle: "My job application was withdrawn by someone pretending to be me":

When Mr Fearn applied for a job at the company he didn't hear back.

He said the recruitment team said they'd get back to him by Friday, but they never did.

At first, he assumed he was unsuccessful, but after emailing his contact there, it turned out someone had created a Gmail account in his name and asked the company to withdraw his application.

Mr Fearn said the talent assistant told him they were confused because he had apparently emailed them to withdraw his application on Wednesday.

"They forwarded the email, which was sent from an account using my name."

He said he felt "really shocked and violated" to find out that someone had created an email account in his name just to tarnish his chances of getting a role.

This is about as low-tech as it gets. It's trivially for me to open a new Gmail account using a random first and last name. But because people innately trust email, it works.



from Schneier on Security https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/07/identity_theft_.html

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