Identity theft and data leaks hit a lot of companies and institutions all over the world in 2006, and it is definitely unlikely that attackers will stop in 2007.

On this proposal,  in the USA the debate about which measures could be more effective in the fight against cyber crime is still taking place but is spite of good intentions, the result seems to be quite discomforting. 

On December 12th 2006, the University of California  declared that its database had been jeopardized by an attack that provoked a huge data leak involving information on about 800 thousands parents, students, teachers and employees.

A worm is apparently  targeting Skype, Websense reported on Tuesday. The worm that firstly infected PCs in the Asia-pacific, and especially in Korea, is still under study because not all the security experts  are in agreement about its origin and its nature.

UK ID card project is about to collapse and British government is planning to set up a new computer system for national identity cards scheme that is believed to grant higher security levels. 

This decision seems to be a u-turn on the government’s initial plan about ID cards, a very criticized  project known as "Identity Management Action Plan", later called the Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity Scheme  that was approved on March 19th.

A huge attack against several major Russian banks ended up with the leak of a database containing the personal details of about 3 million individuals. The data is now being sold for between 2,000 - 4,000 roubles (around $76 - $150) at Russian black market. 

This case represents a further example about the low level of security that is supposed to protect people but it wouldn’t be so worth noticing if it wasn’t for the outcry this news has caused :a media fuss that might have negative effects on data security as well.