According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), identity theft has been the topconsumer complaint for 15 consecutive years.

Unfortunately, as the digital age unfolds, hackers and cybercriminals are developing more sophisticated ways to gain access to the personal information of victims, and identity theft has become an even larger problem.

The numbers

The FTC logged 2.6 million identity theft complaints in 2014, up from only 2.1 million complaints in 2012. In addition, there were 1,540 global data breaches in 2014, up a staggering 46% over 2013’s total. Of these breaches, malicious outsiders or insiders were the culprits in 70% of the cases.

Big-name victims of data breaches in recent years include eBay, Home Depot and JP Morgan Chase. In those three breaches alone, a combined 337 million records were accessed.

One of the fastest-growing segments of identity theft is credit card fraud. There were 31.8 million U.S. credit card breaches in 2014, more than three times the number of breaches reported in 2013.

Show me the money

The large majority of identity thefts are…

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