TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Waco) has introduced legislation aimed at combating identity fraud by providing grants to states to improve their identity protection systems.
The legislation would provide federal grants to states to fund innovation in identity fraud protections. The exact grant amounts have not been specified. Sessions said the goal is to establish a nationwide standard for identity verification that industry and law enforcement could follow.
“It is to have a nationwide standard that we believe could be employed, where people would understand what we’re doing and it would be intended to hit the mark so that industry would know what the standards are,” Sessions said. “And law enforcement would know those standards, too.”
Sessions said part of the bill’s focus is moving away from Social Security numbers as a primary identifier, noting that the current…
Cyber fraud uses technology as the primary weapon. It is highly scalable and can be conducted from anywhere in the world.
- Phishing/Smishing/Vishing: Using deceptive emails (phishing), text messages (smishing), or phone calls (vishing) to trick victims into clicking malicious links or revealing sensitive data.
- Business Email Compromise (BEC): A high-value scam where a criminal impersonates a CEO or high-level executive via a “spoofed” email address to trick a staff member into making an urgent, unauthorized wire transfer.