How much is your personal identifiable information (PII) worth to scam artists? While many people think a nine-digit Social Security number is their most valuable identifier, “it’s actually worth about $2,” says James E. Lee, chief operating officer of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.
If a Social Security number comes with a name and date of birth, it’s $4 or $5, or about “the cost of a caramel macchiato,” says Brian Krebs, a cybersecurity expert who runs the website KrebsOnSecurity.com.
A person’s credit card information is worth more, about $25 to $35, Lee says. A hacked Facebook account can bring $65, and a selfie photo with a U.S. driver’s license, $100.
Who’s buying this information?
“There are hundreds of thousands of serious ‘threat actors’ throughout the world,” says Robert Villanueva, a retired U.S. Secret Service supervisor who’s now executive vice president of Q6 Cyber in Hollywood, Florida.
This personal data is sold in digital “shops” on the dark web as well as in more exclusive online “forums” accessible to more sophisticated cybercriminals, Villanueva adds.
