News: People in their 30s and 50s have seen a bigger increase than other age groups.
Identity theft has seen a 57 percent increase as cyber criminals harvest data from social media accounts and feed it into fraud efforts.
The total number of victims in 2015 reached 148,463 compared to 94,492 in 2014, according to a report by Cifas.
The age groups seeing the biggest increase in fraud were people ages 31 to 40 and 51 to 60, with figures of 64 percent and 60 percent.
21 to 30-year-olds saw an increase of 52 percent, the same increase as over-60s.
There were also regional differences in the growth in identity fraud. Manchester, London and Leeds saw 83 percent, 78 percent and 59 percent increases respectively.
On the other hand, Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool only saw increases of 20 percent, 18 percent and 18 percent, below the average.
A key theme was that an increasing number of the frauds used real rather than fictitious identities. In 2015, only 3.4 percent of all identity frauds involved fictitious identities compared to 10.6 percent in 2011.
Simon Dukes at Cifas said that social media sites had become a “hunting ground” for collecting real details to use in these kinds of attacks.
John Lord, Managing Director at GBG, said: “Social media sites are a goldmine of information for those with malicious intent. Your name, your first school and even your mother’s maiden name are now just a few clicks away for a fraudster.
“Organisations, therefore, need to use more data, analytical insights and triangulation of multiple identity proofing techniques when identity theft occurs, to minimise the effects for both the user and the businesses serving them.”
Cifas provided some guidance in the report, telling potential victims not to ignore suspicious mail that implies they have an account with the sender but don’t, and to get a copy of their credit report to review.
The data was taken from 261 companies in the UK.
[Source:- CBR]
