Study Examines Data Theft And Fraud By State

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

In honor of December, National Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month, WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis that identifies 2015’s States Most Vulnerable to Identity Theft & Fraud.

WalletHub compared nine key metrics to compile the list, such as the total number of identity-theft complaints per 100,000 residents to total cybercrime-related dollar losses per capita. Data used to create these rankings were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, the Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) and the Identity Theft Resource Center.

The states found to be least vulnerable to cybercrime in 2015 are:

1. South Dakota
2. Hawaii
3. Maine
4. West Virginia
5. Kentucky
6. Iowa
7. Montana
8. North Dakota
9. Wyoming
10. Idaho

The states that were most vulnerable last year are

1. District of Columbia
2. Florida
3. Nevada
4. California
5. Arizona
6. Georgia
7. Washington
8. Delaware
9. Texas
10. Illinois

To provide some comparison between the states least vulnerable to data theft and fraud and the most vulnerable, the analysis revealed the total number of identity theft complaints per 100,000 residents in Florida is five times higher than that in South Dakota. In addition, the number of credit card fraud complaints per 100,000 residents in Florida is six times higher than in South Dakota, and the number of bank fraud complaints per 100,000 residents in Florida is five times higher than in North Dakota.

And the number of employment fraud complaints per 100,000 residents in Arizona is 28 times higher than in Maine, and the total cybercrime-related dollar losses per capita in Nevada is 7 times higher than in Maine.

The study concludes with advice for small businesses and consumers about keeping their data safe, such as stressing email security, including having secure passwords and two-step verification of identity. Employee training can also help your SMB clients’ employees help keep data secure by learning to discern a phishing email from a legitimate email, to never open attachments or download files from unknown sources, and to protect critical data.