English-Speaking Users, the Preferred Target of Identity Thieves

A study commissioned by PayPal revealed that e-commerce users from U.K., U.S. or Canada are most exposed to online fraud attempts. Ten percent of the online users from this country were affected by identity theft, compared to only five percent in Germany, France and Spain. PayPal also launched an interactive website aimed at educating users about online security.

Michael Barrett, chief information security officer for PayPal, commented that "this survey shows that while concerns about ID theft form a universal language, more identity theft tends to occur in countries where a higher percentage of e-commerce is concentrated." However, Germany is also a country where e-commerce is highly popular and their statistics are better.

The difference might be explained by another fact revealed by the survey, according to which only 28% German users have admitted to ever sharing their password with another person. In comparison, this was done by 60% of Americans and 56% of the French e-commerce users. The report also notes that Germany was the country with the lowest rate of identity fraud, only 3% of German users being involved in such incidents.

The users in France and Spain were found to be the most lax with their password maintenance practices. More than 25% French users have admitted to using their birth dates as passwords, while also displaying such information on social networking websites. Only 10 percent of users from UK and Canada make this mistake. In addition, 63% of French and Spanish users do not update their password frequently and generally only do it when they have to, while around 50% of users from these two countries store passwords in their browsers.

Considering that e-commerce users in France and Spain are the most negligent regarding their online security practices, but are less affected by identity fraud, it's safe to assume that fraudsters generally target countries where English is an official language.

With Canadians being the most concerned by their online privacy, the report concludes that a high percentage of all e-commerce users expose themselves to social engineering techniques. Forty percent of users from all countries use social networking websites and even though more than 50% receive financial records through regular mail, only 17 percent of consumers in France and 23 percent of consumers in Spain own shredders.

Recommended practices for online financial activities involve having strong passwords, composed of both uppercase and lowercase characters and both letters and numbers, having a separate browser dedicated only for such activities or separating (time-wise) the online banking browsing sessions from normal browsing.