Having recently attended a funeral for a family member, it became obvious how easy it is for someone to steal their identity. Between public death notices, public records available about the deceased (like voting records and many others), financial management disarray, a family focused on the funeral and estate processes, incomplete death notification reporting, and general inattention to cybersecurity in this stage, the opportunity for malicious intent to steal the Digital Identity (DI) is strong.
What can you do to protect against this? The same things you do to manage your own identity, plus a couple of others:
Closely monitor your mail, email, and financial accounts for unusual activity.
Be careful to shred documents with PII (Personally Identifiable Information) or account numbers.
Quickly report a death to each credit reporting agency asking them to place a “deceased alert” on the individual’s credit report.
Send a copy of the death certificate to all the deceased’s creditors, including the IRS, banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies, insurance companies, medical and pharmacy companies, and the Social Security Administration.
Advanced Onion (AO) has been in the People Analytics business since 2011 and recognizes the power of the Internet for nefarious purposes. We’re developing leading edge solutions to objectively and reliably evaluate individual & business risk and Supply Chain Trust.
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