People who find themselves victims of identity already have to deal with the feelings of violation, distrust, and paranoia that inevitable come with having their private and personal information hacked into.  On top of the emotional toll it takes having something like that happen, there is also the incredibly frustrating fallout that comes with having one’s identity stolen.  It can take years to fix the damage done by a single hacker looking for an easy score of cash, medical information, or supplies.  There are companies designed for the sole purpose of protecting their member’s personal and private information.  And there are companies whose sold purpose it is to study the fallout of identity theft and determine statistics based on the information they collect.  Chief among those statistics are the startling revelations into just what it means to recover one’s identity.  Javelin Strategy and Research did a study in 2009 and found that the growing pools of information regarding identity theft have resulted in over 25 million Americans purchases identity theft insurance.  If and when, heaven forbid, someone does fall victim to an identity thief, 46% of them have taken the step of installing antivirus software, anti spyware and firewalls on their computers, as that is the number one place hackers tend to hit.  Also according to Javelin Strategy and Research, 23% of victims changed financial institutions and 22% switched the companies that run their credit cards.  According to that same study, of the victims that were interviewed, all had to deal with multiple institutions in order to rectify the damage done.  66% contacted their banks and credit unions, 35% looked to their local law enforcement to assist in the reclamation of their identities, and 20% rely on the help of identity theft assistance companies. Not many, but 13% contact the Federal Trade commission to report the crime.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 6:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.