LifeLock

In less time than it will take you to read this blog post, Robert Boback and millions of other people can find your income tax return and download it. Within minutes, they’ll know your name, address, phone number, birth date, Social Security number, place of employment, annual income and account numbers.

Think that’s scary? They’ll know much of the same information about your children.

They don’t have to go through your mail, your trash or your unlocked windows. If you’re using a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program, anything on your computer is up for grabs.

Boback demonstrated the ease of stealing personal and financial information during an identity theft summit for law enforcement officials held in Chicago. Boback is CEO of Tiversa, a Pittsburgh based P2P security firm. Tiversa discovered the blueprints for the president’s helicopter and traced them to an IP address in Tehran. They’d been stolen from a home computer loaded with P2P for music sharing over the Internet.

Boback told the summit attendees, “If a victim of identity theft contacts you and says ‘I don’t know what happened. I didn’t lose my purse. I didn’t lose my wallet.’ Guess what? Here is how it happens.”

The summit was co-sponsored by LifeLock and the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association (LEEDA).

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about LifeLock and their partnership with FBI LEEDA. Enroll in LifeLock’s identity theft protection services using the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE to receive a discount on service.