It’s true, identity theft and the compromise of personal data is big business. And spyware blockers and antivirus programs are not necessarily your friend in the fight against it. In fact a lot are actual culprits used by cyber criminals themselves.

The facts, set out in Australia’s new “BLK MKT” cyber-safety campaign, are startling: an identity is stolen every three seconds, with 43 million fake antivirus and spyware programs downloaded every year.

You see these fake spyware blockers and anti-virus programs log all your keystrokes and give the criminals all your sensitive data, including passwords. It’s the perfect crime, using security software to install a false sense of security and then using that exact program to steal your life!

From this information fake passports, driver licenses and other documents can be easily made. You may suddenly find that someone has stolen your identity and you’re a wanted person at the other end of the world.

65 percent of the world’s 2 billion internet users have fallen for cyber crime in some shape or form. This business is now being touted as more lucrative than the illegal drugs trade. That is astonishing, and very frightening at the same time. Because when something is worth so much money more and more people get into it. And more people get even more creative and cunning to get an edge. There are a lot of clever people out there and they’re on the hunt.

Australia is trying to raise awareness by informing the public. Their main stance is that you lock your doors and house to keep out criminals but you also have to safeguard your computer. They plan on doing displays in a mobile shipping container that shows you how an unprotected computer can be compromised in four minutes.

They recently discovered details of 1000 Australians for sale on a Vietnamese website which included people’s credit card numbers.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. You can protect yourself and the best way is to install reputable spyware blockers or antivirus programs. In fact both would be best. It is just not worth trying to download a free version of one of these. The risk is too great and actually the price of a decent program is relatively cheap. Especially taking into account what your computer and identity is worth.