88% of people interviewed in the US and the UK by Accenture said personal irresponsibility is the key cause of identity theft and fraud. 70% of respondents in the UK said they don’t write down their passwords, versus 49% in the US.

Anxiety about sharing personal data is the biggest barrier to consumer acceptance of mobile banking and commerce (66%), according to Harris Interactive. Additional barriers to adoption: more exposure to fraud and financial scams (63% expressed concern); worry about losing a device containing valuable information (61%); concern about costs (58%); usability (43%), reliability (37%), and speed of wireless network (23%)

FTC logged about 800,000 consumer complaints about identity theft during 2007, of which 32% involved identity theft and 68% covered other types of fraud. Of the identity theft cases, only 23% involved a credit card account, and cases of unauthorized new accounts outnumbered misuse of existing accounts by two to one. Other categories involved using someone else’s name for a utilities account (18%), for employment (14%), for government benefits fraud (11%), loan fraud (5%) and other forms of bank fraud (13%).

The share of online revenue lost to fraud in 2007 held steady with 2006 at 1.4%, but as e-commerce grows, the total dollar loss from online payment fraud is growing at the rate of about 20% a year and is estimated at $3.6 bln in 2007, up from $3.1 bln in 2006, according to CyberSource.

Russia now occupies number one spot on Sophos malware ranking list with 27.4% of malware, slightly ahead of China on 27%. Both leave the US trailing in third with 10.1%, Brazil on 6.6%, and the UK with 5.32%.

Overall identity fraud is declining in the United States: down by an estimated 12% over 2006, which represents a total fraud reduction of $6 bln. Fraudsters are turning to lower-tech methods by utilizing telephone theft more than ever before, Javelin Research says.

Access through mail and telephone transactions grew from 3% of ID theft in 2006 to 40% in 2007. Fraud risk is lowest in the Northeast while residents in California and other states are at the highest risk. Young adults who fall victim to fraud are most likely to purchase ID fraud insurance and sign up for fraud alerts. Older adults who fall victim often react by no longer sending bill payments and checks through unsecured mailboxes.

AV Test reported that it saw 5.49 mln unique samples of malicious software in 2007, 5x more than the 972,606 it saw in 2006.

61% of adult Americans said they were very or extremely concerned about the privacy of personal information when buying online, an increase from 47% in 2006, University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future says. Concerns about credit card security have largely stabilized, with 57% very or extremely concerned in 2007. It was 53% in 2006. As of 2007, 67% of adult Internet users shop online, compared with just half a year earlier. Most spend $100 or less a month, and two-thirds of online shoppers have reduced buying at brick-and-mortar stores. Online parents are more likely than ever to withhold Internet use as punishment - 62% in 2007, compared with 47% a year earlier and 32% in 2000.

57% of U.S. adults are concerned about being a victim of identity theft during the holiday season, and 66% believe they are more at risk when making purchases online, according to National Association of Insurance Commissioners. 32% of consumers were victims or knew someone who had been a victim of identity theft in the past five years, according to the survey of 500 adults, age 18 and older. Of those consumers, 46% said the identity theft exceeded $1,000.

Phishing attacks in the United States soared in 2007 as $3.2 bln was lost to these attacks, according to Gartner. 3.6 mln adults lost money in phishing attacks in the 12 months ending in August 2007, as compared with the 2.3 mln who did so the year before. Of consumers who received phishing e-mails in 2007, 3.3% say they lost money because of the attack, compared with 2.3% who lost money in 2006, and 2.9% who did so in 2005. The average dollar loss per incident declined to $886 from $1,244 lost on average in 2006 (with a median loss of $200 in 2007), but because there were more victims, $3.2 bln was lost to phishing in 2007, according to surveyed consumers. Some 1.6 mln adults recovered about 64% of their losses in 2007, up from the 54% that 1.5 mln adults recovered in 2006.

More than $3 bln was lost due to phishing attacks in 2007, according to Gartner. Between August 2006 and August 2007, 3.6 mln adults lost $3.2 bln due to phishing attacks. About 2.3 mln people were hit with phishing attacks in 2006.

4% of American adults were victims of identity theft in 2005, but half of them did not incur any out-of-pocket expenses, FTC said. Identity information was stolen from 8.3 mln US adults and most commonly used to access or open accounts for credit cards, bank checking, telephone service, e-mail, and medical insurance.

US-based Web surfers are more at risk to malware attacks and online identity theft schemes than citizens from other countries, with more than 63% of malware distributed on US-based Web sites. In addition more than 2 mln URLs world-wide distributed malicious downloads to site visitors. Cyveillance also determined that despite the rate of traditional phishing attacks leveling off, there was a 20% increase in the aggregate quantity of brands targeted, indicating that phishers continue to change targets. China and the United States host 60% of sites where malware binaries are stored, while 63% of the sites being used to attract and distribute malware are hosted in the United States. The United States also hosts over 50% of the world?s malware drop sites, which collect information from infected computers that use keyloggers, screen scrapers and other approaches to passively harvest sensitive personal information.

77% of consumers intend to stop shopping at merchants that suffer from data breaches, Javelin Strategy & Research says. Retailers and merchants are viewed by 63% of consumers as the least secure when protecting consumer?s data, compared with processors (16%), card networks like Visa or MasterCard (5%) and issuers (5%). When little is known about a data breach, half of all consumers automatically consider the merchants where they shop to be at fault. However, 85% will reward merchants who are perceived as security leaders with increased purchases.

Approximately 500,000 fewer adults in the United States fell victim to identity fraud in 2006 than in 2005. Of America’s overall adult population, 3.7% were victims, as compared to 4.0% in 2005. This demonstrates a continued year-over-year decrease since data was first collected in 2003 when 4.7% of the adult population was victimized. In terms of total dollars, identity fraud in 2007’s report dropped by an estimated 12% over the previous year, from $55.7 bln to $49.3 bln. New account fraud dropped from 1.5% of all respondents in 2006 to one% in 2007. When fraudulent accounts are opened, many victims caught the fraud more quickly utilizing online channels, such as the viewing of statements, resulting in average fraud amounts dropping from more than $10,000 in 2006 to $7,260 on average in 2007.

The overall adult population of the United States reported a fraud rate of 3.7%. Younger adults between 18 and 24 reported a much greater incident rate of 5.3%. Additionally, more than half of these victims reported knowing their perpetrators, which could include friends, neighbors or in-home employees, as compared to just 23% of overall respondents, Javelin says

For the seventh year in a row, identity theft tops the list, accounting for 36 percent of the 674,354 complaints received between January 1 and December 31, 2006.

Americans lost about $49.3 bln in 2006 to criminals who stole their identities, an 11.5% decline from $55.7 bln in 2005, Javelin Strategy & Research reported. The average identity theft fraud fell 9% to $5,720 from $6,278.

The average loss per phishing attack was $1,244 in 2006, up from $256 in 2005. Gartner estimates that the total financial losses attributable to phishing will total $2.8 bln in 2006. In 2005, 80% of victims got their money back. In 2006 that number dropped to 54%. Gartner estimates that 3.5 mln Americans will give up sensitive information to phishers in 2006, up from an estimated 1.9 mln in 2005.

Over 157,000 unique phishing messages were sent out around the world in the first half of 2006, an increase of 81% compared to the second half of 2005, Symantec said.

30% of consumers were victims of a data breach during the last 12 months. Less than 1% of those whose data was lost were actually victims of identity fraud. Data breaches were responsible for only 6% of all known cases of identity fraud in both new and existing accounts, Javelyn Research says.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) reported that the number of brands hijacked by phishers in July 2006 leapt to a record high of 154, up 20% from June 2006 and more than 12% from the previous high. The APWG’s July report showed a drop in the number of reported phishing campaigns from 28,571 to 23,670, a substantial decreased but still far above the mean of the previous 12 months. At the same time, however, the number of new phishing sites reported rose to a record 14,191, more than 18% higher than the previous high.

Japan reported 1,802 cyber crime cases in the first half of 2006, an 11.8% jump compared to the first half of 2005, the National Police Agency said.

Identity Theft Resource Center and Fellowes, Inc. found that 81% of Americans are aware that identity theft can happen at any time and 65% are using tools to protect themselves. Consistent misperceptions about identity theft crimes and victims cause 50% of Americans to feel vulnerable. The biggest misperception is that Americans believe technology makes them more vulnerable to identity fraud, as nearly 40% of respondents said identity theft is most likely to occur through online exchanges. In reality, online exchanges only represent 9% of the crime, whereas the majority of identity fraud occurs through paper documents and stolen information

In CompUSA TechInsights survey of college students nationwide, nearly 88% of respondents said they keep personal files on their computers. 41%% of the students surveyed weren’t sure or didn’t know what phishing was. 9% admitted they had responded to e-mails asking for information, such as bank account numbers and passwords. 21% of respondents confessed they had given or had been tempted to give sensitive personal information over the Internet when they weren’t confident in the security of the Web site.

Harris Interactive and Wall Street Journal asked Americans regarding their actions when they receive a suspicious e-mail from their bank or financial institution.