Limewire Exposes You to Identity Theft
Ashley Brock
Issue date: 11/30/09 Section: Opinion
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Wood admitted that he did use Limewire to hack-into other users' computers and steal financial information from items such as tax returns and other accounts. He also searched any college applications that were linked to the computers that had Limewire installed on them.
Because college applications are stacked with personal information, Wood was able to retrieve a wealth of financial information from documents such as the FASFA.
As Kathryn Warma, the Assistant U.S. attorney in the Computer Hacking and Internet Crimes Unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office stated, "Many of the victims are parents who don't realize that Limewire is on their home computer."
When Wood was caught for a more low-tech crime, the police found financial information from more than 120 Limewire users on his computer. Yet this isn't the first time that Limewire has been used to steal personal information.
In October 2006 the Denver District Attorney issued a security warning to anyone who has Limewire installed on their computers after discovering that it was linked to over a dozen cases of identity theft. Another case of theft through Limewire happened early in 2008, when Gregory Kopiloff was accused as the first person in the U.S of using a peer-to-peer file-sharing program to steal personal information. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
Not using peer-to-peer file sharing networks can definitely help people avoid becoming victims of identity theft. Although Limewire is an old program, it is very dangerous, and you should get it off your computer. Limewire is not the only file sharing network in today's Internet world, so next time you decide to install one of these programs on to your computer, I would think twice before you are caught as a victim in identity theft.
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