"No matter how careful and tech-savvy you are, no matter if you rarely use a computer, you are more likely than ever to have your credit or debit card numbers usurped, to have cash surreptitiously transferred out of one of your financial accounts, or to have someone snatch up the proceeds of a loan by piggybacking on your credit history..." A white-collar true-crime story,Zero Day Threatis a powerful investigative expose on bank and lending policies that actually facilitate ID theft and fraud.USA Todayreporters Acohido and Swartz reveal the many ways that established corporations and technology giants (including Bank of America, Microsoft, and Google) have fixated on the Internet to maximize their profits, heedless of increased risks to customers. While examining the exploding range of hidden Internet hazards, they reveal the ways in which cyber crooks nab identity data such as Dumpster diving for bountiful paper trash that offers account user names, passwords and Social Security numbers then exploit that information through channels opened up by careless corporate policies. With myriad products sold on-line, we can now buy almost anything over the Internet. But each click of the mouse is accompanied by a false sense of security. In fact, every time we enter our credit card information on a "secure" website, we leave ourselves exposed to cyber criminals, hackers and designers of insidious computer worms. Using real-life examples of those who have endured the nightmare of a stolen identity,Zero Day Threatorganizes its narrative around three central archetypes: "exploiters", the drug addicts, scam artists, and crime lords who carry out the gritty aspects of data theft and financial fraud; "enablers", the credit card companies, banks, and credit bueaus who broker data; and the "expediters", the technology experts running the gamut from good guys like Bill Gates to the devious virus writers and database hackers always on the alert for fresh flaws. Intended not merely to alarm, but to illuminate,Zero Day Threatexposes how lawbreakers do their dirty work, and how corporations help them do it.