A former Internal Revenue Service employee this week got 105 months in prison for pleading guilty to theft of government property and aggravated identity theft in a case where the guy tried to get away with nearly $8 million in fraudulent tax returns.

The Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice teamed up for a coast-to-coast crackdown on identity thieves this week.

How to protect your security and privacy on Facebook

Data breaches cost Australians $US1.83 million in 2009, or $US114 per Australian per year, according to a study conducted by The Ponemon Institute in 2010.

Identity theft related to credit and debit cards dropped by 28 per cent in 2010 over 2009 -- but the out-of-pocket cost to victimized consumers rose by 68 per cent.

Data broker ChoicePoint, the victim of a 2004 data breach affecting more than 160,000 U.S. residents, has agreed to strengthen its data security efforts and pay to compensate potential victims of identity theft for a second breach in 2008, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday.

Although the US government's economic stimulus package hasn't even gotten out of Congress, scammers aren't waiting; they've launched multiple campaigns that tempt users into revealing personal information, a security researcher warned Thursday.

Salesmen and parents know the technique well. It's called the takeaway, and as far as Keith Mularski is concerned, it's the reason he kept his job as administrator of online fraud site DarkMarket.