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U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves are Abusing USPS's Mail Scanning Service — Krebs on Security
A year ago, KrebsOnSecurity warned that “Informed Delivery,” a new offering from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that lets residents view scanned images of all incoming mail, was likely to be abused by identity thieves and other fraudsters unless the USPS beefed up security around the program and made it easier for people to opt out. This week, the U.S. Secret Service issued an internal alert warning that many of its field offices have reported crooks are indeed using Informed Delivery to commit various identity theft and credit card fraud schemes.
The internal alert — sent by the Secret Service on Nov. 6 to its law enforcement partners nationwide — references a recent case in Michigan in which seven people were arrested for allegedly stealing credit cards from resident mailboxes after signing up as those victims at the USPS’s Web site.
According to the Secret Service alert, the accused used the Informed Delivery feature “to identify and intercept mail, and to further their identity theft fraud schemes.”
“Fraudsters were also observed on criminal forums discussing using the Informed Delivery service to surveil potential identity theft victims,” the Secret Service memo reads.
The USPS did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the past six days.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @07:31PM
As mentioned in TFA, the security questions come from the three big credit agencies. Most of these questions require a little homework for someone looking to steal mail, but they aren't that tough. The ones I had to answer were about a previous address and about names of nieces and nephews.
Being prepared with personal information is always beneficial when trying to open loans or credit cards in someone else's name. There isn't a "Pinky Swear" checkbox on the credit applications.