Fergie's Tech Blog

Exploiting Stolen Data Is A Slow Business

Via OUT-LAW.com.

Victims of large-scale data breaches are less likely to be victims of identity theft than those affected by small data breaches, partly because of the time it takes to misuse an identity, according to research by identity risk management firm ID Analytics Inc.

Analysis of data breaches at four separate companies, covering approximately half a million identities, revealed that few of the breached identities were misused for criminal financial gain.

The study distinguishes between “identity-level” breaches, where names and Social Security numbers are stolen and “account-level” breaches, where only account numbers – sometimes associated with names – are stolen.

posted by Fergie @ 12/12/2005 07:22:00 AM