1 min readPublished July 27, 2015
Written by Jeanine Skowronski Jeanine Skowronski
The Bankrate promise
At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict,this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for .
The Bankrate promise
Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts, who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy.
Our banking reporters and editors focus on the points consumers care about most — the best banks, latest rates, different types of accounts, money-saving tips and more — so you can feel confident as you’re managing your money.
Editorial integrity
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU — the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
How we make money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a stricteditorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories, except where prohibited by law for our mortgage, home equity and other home lending products. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range, can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range of offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
While the loss of a pivotal piece of personal information can cost you big-time, thieves aren’t exactly breaking the bank on any single transaction. Instead, they make money by selling in bulk.
If they sell 100,000 Social Security numbers for a penny each, that’s $1,000, says Robert Siciliano, a Boston-based security expert with BestIDTheftCompanys.com.
They also make money by selling composites. “Fullz,” a dossier of credentials for a single identity theft victim, go for an average of $30 apiece, a $5 increase from 2013 prices. “Kitz,” which contain health care data plus counterfeit documents related to it, net more than $1,000.
These dossiers “have always been a specialty and still are,” says David Shear, a network security analyst with Dell SecureWorks. “These include physical credit card, driver’s license, insurance card, etc.”
Below is a breakdown of how much money particular pieces of information can fetch on the black market. Prices are culled from 2013 and 2014 Dell SecureWorks reports.
| Hacker service | Price |
|---|---|
| Social Security number (sold as part of ‘Fullz’ dossier) | $30 |
| Date of birth | $11 |
| Health insurance credentials | $20 |
| Visa or MasterCard credentials | $4 |
| American Express credentials | $7 |
| Discover credit credentials | $8 |
| Credit card with magnetic stripe or chip data | $12 |
| Bank account number (balance of $70,000 to $150,000) | $300 or less |
| Full identity ‘Kitz’ | $1,200 to $1,300 |
Source: Dell SecureWorks
If you suspect your financial data has been stolen, be sure to check your credit report for suspicious activity. Get your report for free at myBankrate.
Related Links:
- Identity-theft victims pay a high price when their data get stolen
- 5 ways to protect your data from hackers
- Does debt settlement hurt credit score?
Related Articles:
- Old tech’s security risks
- When hackers hit, should I worry?
