Stolen data can be used in many ways depending who has sourced it, what have they stolen and what their intentions are.
The types of usage for stolen data:
Identity theft
When the data is, Names, Date of births, address, drivers licence number or passport numbers can be used to,
Open bank accounts
Apply for loans
Open contracts
Other types of fraud.
Account take over
Using email address, usernames and passwords to attempt to unlock accounts elsewhere.
Stuffing attacks. What is a stuffing attack?
Phishing and scams
Having a little information like your email address, name and where you have an account they will email you pretending to be from a business you would expect and ask you to click a link or provide more information to them.
Sell on to other fraud organisations
Not all attackers want to use your data for the above reasons. They accumulate many databases and sell on to other bad actors for fraudulent activities like the ones mentioned above.
Profile building.
Not all data is valuable by itself but over time and by stealing more data they will build up information about individuals and then use that in some of the ways above.
Generally, the most sensitive information includes:
đ´ High Risk
Passwords
Passport numbers
Driver's licence numbers
Banking details
Identity documents
â
đ Medium Risk
Date of birth
Address
Phone number
Tax numbers
Investment account details
đĄ Lower Risk (but still useful to scammers)
Name
Email address
General demographic information
Even seemingly low-risk information becomes more valuable when combined with other stolen data