System and methods for identifying compromised personally identifiable information on the internet

1. A method comprising:

generating, by a computer system, a search-engine query from identity-theft nomenclature;

querying, by the computer system, at least one search engine via the search-engine query;

crawling, by the computer system, at least one computer-network resource identified via the querying;

collecting, by the computer system, identity-theft information from the at least one computer-network resource;

processing, by the computer system, the identity-theft information for compromised personally-identifying information (PII); and

storing the comprised PII.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein processing comprises:

analyzing the identity-theft information for one or more words indicates a potential presence of the PII; and

adding the one or more words to the identity theft nomenclature.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising: generating another search-engine query with the one or more words.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: ranking entries within the identity-theft nomenclature, wherein entries are ranked based on at least one of:

a quantity of PIIs that are compromised as determined based the respective entries;

a quality of PIIs that are compromised as determined based the respective entries; or

a relative significance of PIIs that are compromised as identified based on the respective entries.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one computer-network resource comprises a chat room or a web page.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the at least one computer-network resource comprises the chat room, the collecting the identity-theft information from the at least one computer-network resource comprises at least one of:

distinguishing spam postings from another dialog; or

logging chat dialog into a chat log database.

7. The method of claim 5 , the processing the identity-theft information for the compromised PII comprises discovering new chat rooms by:

determining a frequency that the chat room in one or more chat logs of a plurality of chat logs; and

responsive to a determination that the frequency exceeds a threshold, recording the chat room for future crawling.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: generating and causing transmission of an alert based on the compromised PII.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the processing the identity-theft information for the compromised PII comprises:

validating the at least one computer-network resource by determining whether the at least one computer-network resource likely contains false positives for indicating that one or more PIIs are compromised.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the processing the identity-theft information for the compromised PII comprises normalizing the identity-theft information into a standardized format.

11. A computer system comprising:

non-transitory computer readable medium for storing software instructions; and

a hardware processor programmed to execute the software instructions to:

generate a search-engine query from identity-theft nomenclature;

query at least one search engine via the search-engine query;

crawl at least one computer-network resource identified via the querying;

collect identity-theft information from the at least one computer-network resource;

process the identity-theft information for compromised personally-identifying information (PII); and

store the comprised PII.

12. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein to process the identity-theft information, the hardware processor is programmed to:

analyze the identity-theft information for one or more words indicates a potential presence of the PII; and

add the one or more words to the identity theft nomenclature.

13. The computer system of claim 12 , the hardware processor is further programmed to generate another search-engine query with the one or more words.

14. The computer system of claim 11 , the hardware processor is further programmed to rank entries within the identity-theft nomenclature, wherein entries are ranked based on at least one of:

a quantity of PIIs that are compromised as determined based the respective entries;

a quality of PIIs that are compromised as determined based the respective entries; or

a relative significance of PIIs that are compromised as identified based on the respective entries.

15. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein the at least one computer-network resource comprises a chat room or a web page.

16. The computer system of claim 15 , wherein the at least one computer-network resource comprises the chat room, to collect the identity-theft information from the at least one computer-network resource, the hardware processor is programmed to perform least one of:

distinguishing spam postings from another dialog; or

logging chat dialog into a chat log database.

17. The computer system of claim 15 , wherein the at least one computer-network resource comprises the chat room, to process the identity-theft information, the hardware processor is programmed to:

determine a frequency that the chat room in one or more chat logs of a plurality of chat logs; and

responsive to a determination that the frequency exceeds a threshold, record the chat room for future crawling.

18. The computer system of claim 11 , the hardware processor is further programmed to: generate and cause transmission of an alert based on the compromised PII.

19. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein to process the identity-theft information for the compromised PII, the hardware processor is programmed to:

validate the at least one computer-network resource by determining whether the at least one computer-network resource likely contains false positives for indicating that one or more PIIs are compromised.

20. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein to process the identity-theft information for the compromised PII, the hardware processor is programmed to: normalize the identity-theft information into a standardized format.