It isn’t just Disney that receives high scores for creativity in Orlando, Florida. Identity crooks also seem to be getting so creative that some are asking what could they really achieve if they put their creative minds to do good work instead of thievery and crime.
The story that received so much attention involved a Wal-Mart store in Orlando, where a strange box with an antenna was found, resulting in the store being evacuated and the police bomb squad being called in. The box didn’t contain a bomb at all, but surveillance cameras and further investigation showed that it contained a spy-cam that was seemingly focused on customers making credit card transactions inside the store. It’s suspected that the spy-cam captured the credit card numbers of unsuspecting Wal-Mart customers and beamed those credit card numbers via the wireless video device to thieves waiting in a van in the store parking lot. Though it’s not yet known if any of these customer credit card numbers have yet been used by the crooks or other accomplices, it certainly is expected that these thieves set up this elaborate scheme to perpetrate credit card fraud and identity theft. Police and Wal-Mart authorities are attempting to alert customers of the potential for further unauthorized activity.
There’s no doubt that some of these crooks could use their creativity and skills in a much more productive way. And even if they aren’t interested in helping others, they could help themselves by turning their technical ability into a high-paying technical career that might include helping organizations secure their sensitive data, much in the same way that perhaps one of the most famous identity crooks, Kevin Mitnick, does today.
