While the rest of the world’s economy is in a slow down, cyber-crime is booming and it’s the "average" internet user that’s paying the price.
Rather shockingly a new investigation has discovered that it’s now possible to purchase a complete identity online for as little as £80, with individual items going for just £5 a piece.
For this meager sum a would-be fraudster could expect to receive details of an individual’s full name, address, passport and driving licence numbers. In addition, highly sensitive financial information such as credit card numbers, online banking passwords and even the data that would enable them to clone the magnetic strip of an existing credit card would be included in the price.
Taken together this information could enable a fraudster to reap over £14,500 from an adult on an ‘average salary’ per fraud attempt, according to the report published by Get Safe Online.
The reason that an identity is now so comparatively cheap is simply because there is so much data of its kind available to those who want to exploit it.
However, according to Get Safe Online, a conglomerate of police agency SOCA, representatives of the UK government and major banks working together to help raise awareness of identity fraud, this is to a large extent due to internet users not taking adequate steps to protect themselves.
During the course of their investigation they found that while 85% of internet users do have anti-virus software installed on their computer, 48% of these didn’t keep it sufficiently up to date to offer the protection they need. Furthermore, 23% had no anti-spyware protection installed and 47% had no website authentication software to protect them against potential phishing attacks.
More worrying still, their study found that 1 in 5 individual used the same password for all their internet accounts, giving would-be fraudsters easy and instant access to all their personal accounts online.
Managing Director of GetSafeOnline.org, Tony Neate, commented: "We are actively encouraging more people to go online, but in doing so, to ensure that they are safe and secure. We want to draw attention to the fact that online criminal activity can be a sophisticated business, but that each of us can take steps to prevent ourselves from becoming a victim."
"If internet users invest a relatively small amount of time and money in ensuring they are fully protected and up-to-date, the risk of such financial loss is almost negligible."
