The Invisible Criminal
With millions of people banking, shopping, and conducting other financial transactions online each day, criminals have turned their attention to stealing consumers' online credentials and, ultimately, stealing their money. Consider these frightening statistics:
- Per person losses from online theft are up to $6,383 in 2006, requiring an average of 600 hours to rectify (Source: Identity Theft Resource Center)
- Once every four seconds a phony charge is made to an American's credit card. (Source: MSNBC)
- The volume of phishing attacks recently topped 23,000 per month; new instances of "password-stealing malware" are up 43% (Source: Anti-Phishing Working Group)
- Banks have experienced a 325% increase in phishing attacks, and credit unions have experienced a 584% increase in phishing attacks during the past 12 months (Source: Cyveillance)
- Financial loss reimbursements from banks to consumers has dropped from 82% to 54% during the past two years (Source: Gartner)
According to a report by Gartner, a leading research firm, approximately 15 million Americans were victims of some form of identity theft-related fraud in the 12 months ending in mid-2006, representing more than a 50 percent increase since 2003.
One of the leading causes of financial theft and fraud is electronic theft of sensitive information. In the Gartner report, analyst Avivah Litan concludes, "...the low hanging fruit for the criminals is electronic card and checking account numbers, as well as user IDs and passwords for online financial accounts."
Clearly, online criminals have turned their attention from simple virus attacks designed to inconvenience computer users and enhance the hackers' reputations, to sophisticated online crimes designed to enrich the criminals' bank accounts. Today, over 40 million U.S. households bank online, and cybercriminals are developing increasingly sophisticated online schemes and techniques designed to steal usernames and passwords-and your money.
The key to protecting yourself from identity theft and online crime is to protect your sign-in credentials when you conduct financial transactions online. In a global marketplace where online crime and fraud continue to be on the rise, it has never been more important to fully protect yourself from identity theft on all fronts.
