Data breaches result in 4X increase in identity fraud

Because data breaches have become such commonplace incidents, there is concern that people have become desensitized to the potential harm they face when receiving a notification letter from an organization that they’ve trusted with highly personal information, that this information has been lost or misappropriated.

A recently published report from Javelin Strategies should be a wake up call to those people.

“The Javelin report, Data Breach Notifications: Victims Face Four Times Higher Risk of Fraud, is based on multiple years of data and includes updates on 2009 data breaches, implications of changes to the legislative landscape and the technical means by which data breaches occur.”

This report should also be heeded by those banks, healthcare organizations, government agencies, insurance companies and others that we entrust with our social security and checking account numbers, birthdates and mothers’ maiden names,  and in some cases our personal health information. There is now proof that data breach incidents put the affected individuals in harms way. The responsibility for doing everything possible to help these people address this harm — from identifying identity fraud to cleaning up the fraud — should fall squarely on the laps of these organizations.