A New Jersey-based company specializing in the prevention of identity theft wants victims of the crime to participate in a free consumer education program. StrikeForce Technologies wants victims to share their stories and try out a copy of GuardedID, the companys answer to preventing identity theft by keyloggers.
“We want to bring the huge problem of online identity theft to the forefront to protect people from cyber-criminals who are using very clever methods to secretly install their keylogging software on PCs to steal credit and banking information from citizens,” said George Waller, EVP of StrikeForce Technologies, in a statement. “This education program will reward and protect victims of identity theft with a one-year free license of GuardedID to give them the peace of mind knowing they can now bank, shop, e-mail and browse online because GuardedID is protecting their online activities.”
Keyloggers install themselves onto computers without the knowledge of the owner to steal personal and financial information. Once installed on the users computer, a keylogger makes a copy of all keystrokes, the details of which are then secretly saved to a hidden file on the computers hard drive and retrieved by the hacker who created the keylogging program.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse estimates 15 million people will have their identity compromised in 2006, an increase of more than 350 percent over last year, StrikeForce officials said.
Company officials are asking victims of identity theft to register and share their story and contact information at story@guardedid.com.
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