Identity Theft Incidents Increased by over 41% in 2022

The Identity Theft Resource Center just released its annual report, and the findings in this report do not bode well for the future of personal data security in the US. According to this report, 422 million people ended up being the victim of data theft, and this led to many further issues including identity theft with all things having been considered and taken into account.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this represents a 41.5% increase from the numbers that were seen last year. That’s despite a downward trend being noted for most of the year, but in December it was revealed that the personal data of 220 million Twitter users was available on the Dark Web which made the numbers much higher than might have been the case otherwise.

Twitter ended up representing the single biggest data leak of 2022, but in spite of the fact that this is the case there were many other companies that were responsible for something similar. Neopets, AT&T, Cash App as well as Beetle Eye all contributed to this trend, with these five companies representing the least secure platforms as far as user data is concerned.

This data includes things like social security numbers, full names and many other types of information that can lead to identity theft and fraud. Companies need to be more transparent about data leaks because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up helping the people who have had their data stolen to take the necessary steps to protect themselves.

34% of data breach reports contained precise details about what was leaked during the theft. That means that 2 out of every 3 data breaches have taken information that has not yet been made clear to the public. Transparency is key here, and until major tech corporations are able to take responsibility for all that they are doing, it’s fairly like that these incidents will keep occurring. Threat actors will be able to operate in secret which can make their actions all the more harmful.


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