Identity Theft: It’s only a matter of time

The extent to which personal information is at risk in our society is truly shocking when you look at the statistics. The number of hacked accounts in the United States may reach 432 million, and this number affects the personal information of 110 million Americans. This means that nearly half the adults in the country have been victimized, on some level, by hackers – all within the last 12 months. This information was compiled by the Ponemon Institute for CNNMoney and published in a recent article that illustrates how widespread this crime has become. It lists many of the widely publicized breaches that have occurred over the past several months, including:

• The Target data breach that put at risk 70 million customers’ personal information and 40 million credit and debit card accounts.
• The breach that exposed the user credentials of Adobe software customers along with their personal information that included encrypted credit and debit card numbers for 2.9 million people.
• The breach of security at eBay that helped hackers gain access to the names, passwords, email and physical addresses, phone numbers and birthdates of up to 148 million account holders.
• The near daily reports of new cyberattacks that place personal information at risk lead many to think that it’s a matter of when, not if, a given consumer will become the victim of identity theft or fraud. As this type of crime continues to spread, financial institutions that combat fraud and mitigate the damage it does will be providing a valuable service for customers, and they’ll be doing themselves a favor, too.

If you want to keep up on the latest breaches, stop by Fighting Identity Crimes from EZ Shield for their monthly collection of the latest breaches.