Digital identity theft is more lucrative, and growing quickly.

Seems the news about identity theft comes in bouts, doesn't it?  Today, there's an article on CW  that points out that the majority of identity theft starts in the physical world.  I wrote a book about identity theft prevention early last year that's still selling pretty well.  And one of the topics addressed in the book is that the majority of identity theft does happen (or at least start) in the real world.  And usually, the criminal turns out to be someone the victim knows.

But that's changing and that's a point that the Javelin analyst didn't seem too willing to divulge.  Yes, most identity theft starts offline.  But the identity theft that takes place in the digital world not only seems to be more costly, but it's also growing at a rate that will lead it well beyond the number of instances of identity theft that don't involved digital data before long. 

Here's why.  Online, identity theft is a much easier crime to carry out.  A criminal needs only to go through the motions of stealing one identity, and then with the technologies that are available, they can repeat that crime over hundreds of thousands of people within a matter of minutes.  In the real-world, identity theft is less duplicatable.  And that means that more and more criminals are moving to more automated forms of identity theft. After all, it pays better.

Still, that doesn't negate the need for protection in daily life as well as protection for Internet identities.  As a consumer, shredders are a must.  As are more and better personal protection strategies, like carrying only one credit card at a time.  But as business professionals, we need to be more aware of how we put customers at risk.  For example, I was standing in a local gym this afternoon, speaking with one of the receptionists when I noticed that the key tags they use to log members cause the member record to flash on a computer screen when the tag is scanned.  The problem there is that the computer screen is turned so that anyone standing at the front desk (like I was) can see the members entire record, including how much they owe the facility, what their address and phone number is, and a picture of that person.

These types of systems are what put people at risk.  If I'd had a notion, I could have walked away with several customer identities today.  And it's not the first time it's happened.  Business professionals have to be more aware of how they're putting their customers at risk.  Just because you've done something a certain way for 15 years and never had a data breach doesn't mean you're immune.  It means your lucky.  But if you're not protecting customer data, your luck will run out.  It's not a matter of 'if,' it's a matter of 'when.'