Cyber crooks are now collaborating and competing across the globe via their own vast online networks to buy, sell, and barter stolen information, including Social Security, credit card, and bank card numbers -– as well as passwords and PINs (personal identification numbers).

A U.S. credit card with a card verification number can now be bought and sold for as little as a buck. Personal identities, which include a U.S. bank account, credit card, date of birth, and Social Security number, can be had for anywhere between $14 and $18. Thieves no longer have to go to the trouble to steal our info –- they can simply buy it –- and then take our money and use our credit. 

These are some of the key findings from Symantec's new "Internet Security Threat Report," which covers the last six months of 2006. The data come from over 40,000 sensors in 180 countries, as well as from 2 million decoy email accounts. Symantec, which makes Norton anti-virus software, found more of all the things we don't want in cyberspace -– more information being stolen, more data "leaking" from government and corporations, more spam, and more code being written to steal confidential information.

More than 6 million computers worldwide were "bot-infected" during this time period, which means that they could be unwittingly used as robots (aka zombies), doing the dirty work for spammers, hackers, and identity thieves. That's a 29% increase over the first half of 2006. At the same time, the number of servers used to control these bots decreased by 25%, which tells the folks at Symantec that bot network owners are both consolidating and growing their networks.

Spam accounted for six out of ten emails during the second half of 2006, and 30% of them had to do with the financial services industry, including 166,248 "unique" phishing messages. That averages out to 904 separate messages a day that looked like they came from legit outfits but were really from crooks trying to get us to give up personal info.   

How’s Your Computer Security?
If you haven't taken a hard look at your computer security lately, use Symantec's findings to motivate you to get:

• A firewall to protect PCs from hackers and spoofers (who use unprotected email addresses to hide their identities).
• Anti-virus software to detect and remove viruses and worms.
• Anti-spyware to keep inquiring "eyes" out of tracking online behavior and using the info to their advantage.
• An Identity theft/credit monitoring service to make sure no one has stolen your identity

Click here for Credit.com's recommendations.

Four Important Reminders

1. Do NOT to click on attachments unless you know who sent it to you … and why!
2. Always think before you download … and get your kids to do likewise. If you aren't positive it's safe, don't do it!
3. Never provide financial or other personal info unless you initiated the email exchange. Otherwise, you could unknowingly help thieves who are "phishing" for ways to take advantage of you. Credit.com offers many other tips for safeguarding your identity.
4. Be careful with your equipment! One of the key findings from Symantec's "Internet Security Threat Report" is that over half of all data breaches happened because a computer, hard drive, or USB memory key got lost or stolen. We all need to pay closer attention to the safety of our hardware! Do you know where your laptop is?