Credas Warns That ID Theft is Driving Data Breaches

Credas Technologies, has revealed that identity theft is the driving factor behind more than 28 million data breaches across the UK since 2013, breaches that cost the nation close to £4 billion each and every year. On a global level, it is estimated that there have been close to 10 billion digital data records stolen or breached since 2013. The UK ranks fifth when it comes to national total data breaches, with over 140 million files stolen or breached in this timeframe, trailing just the USA, India, China, and South Korea.

Across the UK, this equates to an average of 28 million data breaches per year, which is estimated to cost the UK £3.7 billion on an annual basis.

One of the most common motivations for data hacking is identity fraud and the latest data from the National Fraud Database (NFD) shows this fraudulent practice accounts for 63% of all cases of fraudulent conduct. What’s more, cases of identity fraud across the UK have increased by 22% in the past year alone.

With ID fraud rising so dramatically, how do companies and individuals avoid falling victim to data hacking criminals? The most important thing is to know exactly what the warning signs are and what you need to be looking out for.

Tim Barnett, CEO of Credas Technologies says

“All of the most important financial elements of our lives are now handled online. We have passwords and logins for everything from our current accounts to our pension pots and we also apply for new bank accounts, mortgages, rental properties and more online.

While this brings great convenience, it also leaves you vulnerable to criminals and today, the lengths these criminals will go to are advancing at a faster rate than some businesses and organisations are improving their digital security.

Companies big and small need to make sure they’re doing all they can in the fight against online criminality and while that starts with ensuring they have a robust and unbreachable tech infrastructure, it also involves verifying the identity of consumers before they have the opportunity to infiltrate our society.

This is really the absolute minimum that should be done and with many companies choosing to do this manually, it allows far too many to slip through the cracks, enabling them to conduct criminal activities at ground level.”