The ITRC has released its 2023 Trends in Identity Report, which shows identity crimes are down, but job scams are way up!
Today, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) released its 2023 Trends in Identity Report, which outlines the identity crimes reported in 2023 and how criminals convinced people to willingly share information. The report also outlines how stolen information was used to open new accounts and evade law enforcement.
In 2023, the ITRC saw a 16-percentage-point decrease in the number of reported identity crimes (compromise, theft and misuse) compared to 2022. Of those crimes, 53 percent were related to compromised credentials, 38 percent to actual misuse and 2 percent to attempted misuse. Reports of attempted identity misuse increased by 11 percentage points, most often related to a financial account.
While overall reports of scams to the ITRC decreased by 18 percentage points in 2023 from the prior year, job scams increased by a whopping 118 percentage points. Job scams were primarily carried out through websites, typically LinkedIn or job search platforms.
Other findings in the 2023 Trends in Identity Report include:
- While down by 16 percentage points compared to 2022, Google Voice scams remained the top scam reported to the ITRC. Google Voice scams were mostly carried out through Facebook and other social media platforms.
- Scams (78 percent), Lost or Stolen Items (8 percent) and Unauthorized Access to a computer or mobile device (6 percent) were the most reported forms of identity compromise.
- Existing Account Takeover (52 percent) and New Account Creation (36 percent) were the most reported forms of identity misuse, followed by crimes committed using compromised personal information (5 percent) and employment-related identity fraud (5 percent).
Oh, and identity thieves are improving at looking and sounding “legitimate,” thanks in part to generative artificial intelligence, especially when it comes to job postings. Victims are facing more complex types of identity misuse with more severe impacts.
The 39-page PDF 2023 Trends in Identity Report provides these and a lot more key cyber-stats. Check it out here!
So, what do you think? Are you surprised that the numbers aren’t worse? I am. Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Image created using GPT-4’s Image Creator Powered by DALL-E, using the term “robots finding out their data has been breached”.
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.