With nearly two million Americans duped last year Illegal access to bank accounts, often gained via technology-borne schemes such as "phishing," has grown into the fastest growing form of consumer theft in the US, according to Gartner. Gartner's numbers show roughly 1.98 million people reported their checking accounts were breached in some way during the last year. Crimes such as phishing, whereby criminals use misleading email and websites to dupe individuals into sharing personal data like passwords, accounted for a staggering $2.4bn in fraud, or an average of $1,200 per victim, during the last 12 months.
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