Yesterday, Network World published an article "ID theft forecast: Gloomy today, worse tomorrow". In it, the article quoted Avivah Litan, a Gartner analyst as saying the following:
* "For the year-long period that ended last August, 15 million people were burned by some kind of fraud related to identity theft"
* "That number is 50% higher than 2003 data released by the Federal Trade Commission"
* "The average identity theft fraud loss more than doubled in 2006 to $3,257 from $1,408 the year before"
* "The percentage of recovered funds dropped to 61 percent in 2006 from 87% in 2005"
* "The average loss on new-account fraud -- where criminals use the data they've stolen to open new credit card or bank accounts -- was $5,962 in 2006, a jump of 223% over 2005's $2,678."
* "...unauthorized charges to credit cards leaped nearly fourfold, to an average last year of $2,550. Unauthorized charges in 2005 averaged just $734."
Further on in the article it states ""But I really think that it will take an extreme attack of some kind and broad disruption before things change," Litan said."
This just confirms what other experts and myself have been saying i.e. there's at least two to three years of more bad news ahead before things start to get better.
Guy
www.authenticationworld.com
guy.huntington@authenticationworld.com
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