The cost of online fraud and identity theft is immense, not only in terms of the monetary costs to business and individuals but the loss of security and associated feelings of vulnerability. But this stress is caused by people who sell your personal details very cheaply indeed, meaning your identity is practically worthless.

Identity theft is a crime massively on the rise. Each year sees more and more people defrauded in some way by the stealing of personal details and methods of payment. And Christmas is a particularly good time of year for cyber-criminals looking to rob from the vulnerable to give to who they feel is worthy: themselves.

According to The London Telegraph, Trend Micro recently published research detailing how the holidays are a prime time for online fraud to occur and how much each set of details is worth when sold on. With cyber attacks estimated to have increased by 500 percent in the holiday season last year, this is an especially good time to take heed of the facts.

Cyber-criminals usually harvest personal details before selling them on to organized gangs involved in virus spreading, malware distribution, and purely fleecing people for all they can. But rather than the thousands of dollars I expected to be involved, the flow of illegally-obtained information can be incredibly cheap.

A Facebook profile can sell for just 89p ($1.40) while an individual’s bank details are priced at around £35 ($54). Credit card details go for around £25 ($38) while a trojan to be used to steal information from a person’s computer can cost as little as £60 ($93).

Meanwhile, spamming, which most of us are too sensible to pay any attention to these days, is the cheapest of all. On the black market, you can obtain 30,000 UK based email addresses for just £5 ($8) and one million international email addresses for £4 ($7). Thanks to more stringent email spam filters that amount of addresses still wouldn’t guarantee a hit, hence the low price.

Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro told ITPro:

Whether you’re going online to use Facebook, doing your banking or Christmas shopping you should be aware that hacking activity and identity theft tend to increase during certain times of the year.

As we approach Christmas we urge users to apply a certain sense of caution when it comes to the sites they visit and giving away personal information.

The Internet is rapidly becoming a place where you have to watch your back at every turn thanks to the sheer amount of criminal activity. If it’s not your email inbox, it’s your Facebook or MySpace account. If it’s not shopping sites, it’s Web sites you trust that still could be infected with malware. And unfortunately, it seems as though the cyber-criminals are forever one step ahead.

Related:

Entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 11:12 pm under Crime, Hacking, Internet, Opinion, Security.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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