March 28, 2007

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  NEWS: Identity Theft Rises in 2007

  It's discouraging news to be sure, but with the first quarter of 2007 all but over, it seems that identity theft has grown steadily through the first three months of the year. Online risk monitoring provider Cyveillance this week announced its most recent "Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft" report showed significant increases in phishing and malware through the second-to-last week of March. These two online identity theft risks, considered to be the most significant, increased by 50% and 200%, respectively in the last two months. Furthermore, part of the research involved in generating the report revealed some one million stolen consumer social security numbers.
  
  Phishing attacks were commonly noticed around large-scale banks and financial service centers, with almost all the big names in banking being affected. Disturbingly, medium- and even small-sized institutions are beginning to be targeted as well. There is a trend of more than 200 new brand names being phished each quarter; the jump from January 2007 to February 2007 alone saw that amount climb from 800 to 1,200. Credit unions in particular saw the most increase, at 584%.
  
  More sophisticated malware was also cited as a huge problem, escalating the impact of the crime from annoyance to serious financial disturbance. Cyveillance pinpointed over one million unique web pages displaying significant amounts of malware, with more and more popping up on a daily basis. Cyveillance indicated that malware was the single most increased method of identity theft, as more and more crooks look to it as a form of generating illegal revenue.
  
  
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