Fighting Identity Theft on the Web:

Steamboat Springs security consultant Rob Douglas, who has testified in front of Congress about privacy issues, recently launched an identity-theft-protection Web site called InsideIDTheft.info.

“We’re trying to position ourselves as a news, commentary, video and blogging site,” said Douglas, co-founder of the site with Keith Lubsen. “We feel that there’s a need for both consumers and even more so the business community confronted with cyber-crime issues to get straight information.”

Douglas is part of an increasing group of experts addressing the fast-growing crime.

Suze Orman, who dispenses financial advice on TV, and TrustedID started selling an identity-theft-protection kit last year. There’s been a proliferation of other for- profit Web sites in recent years, as well as the work of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center’s IDTheftCenter.org.

Incidents are publicized almost daily. Just last week, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. said its system, which processes more than 100 million Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover Card transactions, was breached last year.

Douglas, a private detective turned cyber expert, previously focused his efforts on a Web site called PrivacyToday.com.

He has testified a number of times before Congress, and worked with the House Financial Services Committee in the late 1990s to expose “pretexters” who used devious means to obtain and sell a person’s financial records.

InsideIDTheft.info doesn’t sell products online like some identity theft sites, but Douglas does advertise his services as a speaker. The site includes videos to help consumers and businesses avoid identity theft, and to advise victims.

InsideIDTheft.info also has a counter on its home page that keeps track of the estimated number of identity theft victims in the U.S. so far in 2009.

“The counter is set for 15 million a year,” Douglas said, adding studies estimate 10 million to 15 million victims a year. “We took the high number. There is a lot of identity theft that doesn’t get reported.”

Certain types of identity theft are on the rise, including fake e-mails from financial institutions, designed to take advantage of a consumer’s concern about the country’s current financial turmoil.

Even if a consumer doesn’t fall for the scheme and provide confidential account information, just clicking on the link may result in malicious software being installed on one’s computer.

Read the full report at The Rocky Mountain News.