http://tips.vlaurie.com/2007/01/a-grim-outlook-for-internet-security/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-grim-outlook-for-internet-security News, commentary and tips for safer and easier computing Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:48:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 http://tips.vlaurie.com/2007/01/a-grim-outlook-for-internet-security/comment-page-1/#comment-1684 Vic Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:05:10 +0000 http://tips.vlaurie.com/2007/a-grim-outlook-for-internet-security/#comment-1684 A valued reader (my wife) has commented that the statement, ”One third of all U.S. adults had their identity and financial information stolen or lost in 2006 alone”, is hard to believe. I agree and I thought so when I read the article. However, Grimes has access to information that I do not and security is his profession so I made no comment on this very high number. The one third includes “financial information” and there are a lot of reports of lost laptops containing large collections of personal records, hacks of computers containing records, lost tapes with account numbers and other incidents that are not caused by phishing or Trojans. Most of these incidents seem to pass without a lot of reported identity theft. However, the organization Phishinginfo.org (http://www.phishinginfo.org/) states in large letters on the home page, ”1 in 6 people are victims of ID theft”. Exactly how they count things, I do not know. Exact numbers are probably not even available since banks and credit card companies are not eager for public knowledge of the size of the problem to get out. Whatever the actual numbers, however, identity theft is not a small problem and it growing larger all the time. A valued reader (my wife) has commented that the statement, ”One third of all U.S. adults had their identity and financial information stolen or lost in 2006 alone”, is hard to believe. I agree and I thought so when I read the article. However, Grimes has access to information that I do not and security is his profession so I made no comment on this very high number. The one third includes “financial information” and there are a lot of reports of lost laptops containing large collections of personal records, hacks of computers containing records, lost tapes with account numbers and other incidents that are not caused by phishing or Trojans. Most of these incidents seem to pass without a lot of reported identity theft. However, the organization Phishinginfo.org (http://www.phishinginfo.org/) states in large letters on the home page, ”1 in 6 people are victims of ID theft”. Exactly how they count things, I do not know. Exact numbers are probably not even available since banks and credit card companies are not eager for public knowledge of the size of the problem to get out. Whatever the actual numbers, however, identity theft is not a small problem and it growing larger all the time.

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