Wednesday June 10 2009

According to a recent study by Experian, having a good credit score isn't just good for you and your lenders, it's also good for identity thieves. The report, published on June 8th, analyzed more than 800,000 records from 2007 and 2008, including data provided by bank card issuers, retail card issuers, retail banks and other organizations.

The report found that the higher your credit score, the higher the risk of identity theft. Apparently the reason for the correlation is the simple fact that if a better score makes it easier for you to get credit, it also makes it easier for anyone pretending to be you.

According to the report "the occurrence rate of identity fraud rises dramatically as credit scores increase" but while the report doesn't suggest that identity thieves deliberately target those with high scores, we know they do.

Spear phishing is a common form of phishing that deliberately targets high net worth individuals, and we've known for years that identity thieves target the elderly in part because they usually have high credit scores and low credit balances.

Here's an article on the study.