In 2007, credit card data and social security number theft reached record levels in 2007, with experts predicting it will only get worse in 2008.  Estimates of 79 million records in the USA and 162 million worldwide were compromised last year.

Major breaches last year included TJX Co., which accounted for more than half the breaches, and the breach the United Kingdom suffered of its citizens health records.  However, a large majority of the information that was lost was due to employees losing the information as opposed to hackers gaining access to a company’s database.

while companies, government agencies, schools and other institutions are spending more to protect ever-increasing volumes of data with more sophisticated firewalls and encryption, the investment often is too little too late.  “More of them are experiencing data breaches, and they’re responding to them in a reactive way, rather than proactively looking at the company’s security and seeing where the holes might be,” said Linda Foley, who founded the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center after becoming an identity theft victim herself.

Users need more education so that this type of problem doesn’t happen.  Your phone number and full address aren’t needed on 90% of the sites you visit, so why give it up so freely?  Unfortunately, the only people who seem to take this problem seriously are those that have been victims of identity theft or paranoid people, like myself, who keep informed about just what is happening with their information.