MADISON, Wis. — A new report shines a light on just why identityfraud is so pervasive.

The study, Combating Identity Theft: Leading Practices forCredit Unions finds that more effort should be directed toverifying at the point of service that those receiving financialbenefits are really who they claim to be.

Because of the challenges credit unions face in battlingidentity theft, the study was conducted to clarify the nature ofidentity theft and classify countermeasures in the credit unionenvironment.

Research was conducted by the University of Wisconsin E-BusinessConsortium and sponsored by CUNA Mutual Group, CUNA, and the CreditUnion Information Security Professionals Association.

“Sensitive personal information is difficult to protect, and thetechnology needed to protect that information with a high degree ofconfidence can be complex and expensive,” said Dr. Steve Arnold,researcher and consultant with UWEBC who led the study. “There aremany legacy systems that are difficult to update with newprotection techniques. In addition, the business itself depends onfast and easy access to sensitive personal information for optimumservice, which creates a counter demand to privacy protectionwithin the organization.”

The free research report is available online atwww.UWEBC.org.

Identity theft has become an increasing problem and concern forcompanies and consumers across the country, with some 10 millionpeople falling victim to identity theft annually. In the U.S. in2006, $56.6 billion were stolen through identity theft, with anaverage fraud per victim of $6,278. Much of these losses arecovered by businesses.

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