40% of US consumers suffered personal data theft in 2021

The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), a non-profit organization established to minimize risk and mitigate the impact of identity compromise, revealed that 40% of US consumers had their personal information either stolen, compromised, or misused in 2021.

According to its 2022 Consumer Impact Report, based on a poll of 1371 consumers, the percentage of repeat identity crime victims decreased year over year. However, half of them still acknowledged being victims more than once. They also seem to be experiencing more sophisticated attacks, as the proportion of open cases increased from 35% to 55% between 2020 and 2021.

Social media account takeovers have increased by 1,000% yearly, and 51% of victims have lost personal money or sales. A Facebook compromise was mentioned 25% of the time, with Instagram account hijacking occurring 85% of the time. Although victims are losing less money now—the majority are losing "under $500"—those who lost more than $10,000 made up nearly a third of all losses, up from just 9% in 2020.

But as the report noted, the effects of these incidents are getting worse. Compared to victims reporting physical effects, which increased from 44% to 68% over the same period, victims reporting negative emotions increased from 79% in 2020 to 87% in 2021.

Physical issues can include insomnia, stress, recurring pains, altered eating and drinking patterns, and the onset of new unhealthy or addictive behaviors. 79% of those surveyed claimed to have altered their routines to reduce risk moving forward. This includes using identity monitoring services, freezing their credit reports, checking their credit reports frequently, setting a PIN or password on their mobile device, and shredding their paperwork.