While various groups reported the exposure of 77 million identity records in the first half of 2007, the actual number of exposed identities is perhaps as much as ten times the reported amount, or close to 1 billion records per year. The growing identity theft market has created an arms race between security organizations and thieves, with the value of the identity theft market set to exceed the value of organizations fighting to protect identity information. Enterprises, vendors and investors must face the prospect that soon those seeking to steal IDs will have more resources available to them than those offering solutions to protect IDs.

Driving identity theft is the “street value” of someone’s personal record. Nemertes estimates that a basic identity record typically trades for $14; the more personally identifiable information in the record, the higher the record’s value. If only 5% of the exposed records are traded, the market for trading identities in 2007 will still exceed $679 million.

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