‘50,000 in Barking and Dagenham have had personal details stolen’
The 'stolen' data include credit and debit card details (pic: PA Wire) - Credit: PA Archive/Press Association Images
Just shy of 50,000 people in Barking and Dagenham have had their personal details stolen and put up for sale on the “dark web” by criminals, according to an intelligence firm.
Due diligence company C6 Intelligence Group told the Post 49,577 records are available to crooks who know where to look.
But the total number of people affected could be much higher – because the information held on many people will not include a postcode and therefore won’t appear against Barking and Dagenham on C6’s search system.
Darren Innes, chief executive of the group, said the figure could easily be 30 or 40 per cent higher.
A spike in information thefts has been recorded in 2014. C6 has said 20 million of the 36m personal passwords it has uncovered were stolen this year.
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Darren said: “We currently have more than 400m compromised identities on record, but in the last two months we have seen an increase of more than 5,000pc in the number of compromised identities going up for sale on the dark web daily from 13,000 to about 658,000.”
The dark web refers to pages that are “hidden” to search engines but can still be viewed by internet users.
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On average eight pieces of information about each person targeted have been offered up for sale, he added.
The e-mail passwords or credit or debit card numbers of 3,888 of people from Barking and Dagenham are available.
Darren said: “The primary thing people can do, and the most important thing, is not to have the same e-mail address for more than one account.
“People should regularly change their passwords, never have the same password for more than one account, check bank statements for anything untoward and regularly check our website for free to see if you have been compromised.”
Darren added his firm offers a free service to check if people’s details have been compromised.
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