Millions exposed to identity theft

Johannesburg, 27 Mar 2009

Over 10 million users worldwide have been infected with active identity theft-based malware, reveals Panda Security. The company conducted an extensive identity theft study, in which 67 million computers were analysed last year.

The Panda investigation reveals that 1.07% of all PCs scanned in 2008 were infected by identity theft-related active malware (such as banker Trojans), with the number of PCs infected with identify theft malware increasing by 800% from the first half of 2008.

Based on the trend of the previous 14 months, Panda Security predicts the infection rate will increase by an additional 336% per month throughout 2009.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, the average time victims spend resolving identity theft issues is 30 hours per incident. The cumulative cost in hours alone from identity theft-related malware based on Panda Security's projected infection rate could reach 90 million hours.

The Panda study reveals an alarming 35% of PCs infected with this type of malware were using up-to-date antivirus software.

Jeremy Matthews, head of Panda's sub-Saharan operations, says anti-virus labs are receiving a massive amount of new malware samples each day, and anti-virus vendors are continually updating their services to keep up with the overwhelming volume of new malware surfacing each day.

“AV detection labs such as Panda Labs have made advances in automated detection and classification capabilities. These new detection methods, as well as improved surveillance and cloud-based detection techniques, have reduced the risk of individual identity theft incidents and its associated costs.”

Global banks have become increasingly targeted by Trojans, Matthews says. To combat this, some banks have made changes to their banking authentication by using electronic tokens and virtual keyboards. However, he notes, these approaches have seen a slow adoption. The most common origins of these banker Trojans are in China and Russia, with Korea and Brazil also emerging as countries of origin for these threats.