ID theft can't be ignored

Any organization that isn't working hard to protect staff, client and customer data might want to check out the latest figures on identity theft coming from the government. Approximately 3 percent of U.S. households were impacted by ID theft, and the cost of such criminal activity is just over $6 billion, according to the Department of Justice. That's just in the first half of 2004. Given the continual news reports on ID theft incidents, the numbers are quite higher today. While the major criminal vehicle is the theft of credit cards, accounting for about half of the incidents, nearly 25 percent had banking and other types of accounts used without permission, 15 percent had their personal information misused and about 12 percent faced a combination of several types of ID theft.

For more on ID theft on the rise:
- read this article at Infoworld