10 November, 2005 - 1:09pm

A wealth of information on identity theft has recently been released. The National Crime Prevention Council reported that ID Theft was seen as the most critical law enforcement topic over the next decade by 54% of survey respondents at the recent 2005 National Crime Prevention Council. The topic was also top of mind this week at the Digital ID World Financial Services Summit, at an ID Theft Forum in NY, and by the AntiPhishing Working Group.

At DIDW yesterday morning, a panel on Combatting Phishing & ID Fraud noted that there has been a growth in keystroke logging and predicted that the next wave of malware will be "RATs" (Remote Access Trojans), which are designed to harvest online bank passwords of compromised computers. The APWG has also noticed a dramatic increase in RATs this year, finding 170 distinct Trojan programs used to steal bank data last month versus only 30 in January.

On Tuesday, the APWG released a Counter-Phishing Strategies Whitepaper: Online Identity Theft: Technology, Chokepoints and Countermeasures. The in-depth report examines the information flow in phishing attacks of all types. Technologies used by phishers are discussed, in combination with countermeasures that can be applied. The focus is primarily on technology that can be deployed to stop phishing. Both currently available countermeasures and research-stage technologies are discussed.