 TITLE: Identity Theft Statistics CONTENT: The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) recently announced its 2017 Data Breach report and it's no surprise that breaches are up.Last year there were 1,579 data breaches exposing nearly 179 million records.That represents a 44% increase in the number of breaches and a 389% increase in records exposed.\nEmbed\nThe IRTC report also stated that the number of credit card numbers exposed in 2017 totaled 14.2 million, up 88% over 2016. In addition, nearly 158 million Social Security numbers were exposed in 2017, an increase of more than eight times the number in 2016.\nEmbed\nIdentity theft is one of the most common outcomes from data breaches. 31.7% of breach victims in 2016 later experienced identity fraud, compared to just 2.8% of individuals not notified of a data breach in 2016, according to Javelin.\nThe Federal Trade Commission's Consumer Sentinel Network Report stated that **identity theft accounted for 13.87% of all consumer complaints in 2017**.\nAlso, according to a survey conducted by Experian, as of August 2017 most Americans were worried their information could be stolen, as 73% said they are very or somewhat concerned their email, financial accounts or social media info could be hacked, up from 69% in a similar survey conducted in 2015. END