A burgeoning online market for stolen personal details is fuelling a massive rise in cyber crime.

Symantec, a leading internet security firm, reveals today that an underground economy has developed around the exchange of stolen personal information, including credit card details, which are now available for as little as 25p each.

Con Mallon, director of product marketing at Symantec, said that fraudsters were becoming increasingly technically competent and malicious. “What we’ve seen in the last six months is a marketplace developing where the volume of availability is pushing down prices,” he said. “Criminals are having to compete to sell personal information.”

Six months ago credit card details, which usually are sold in blocks of ten or twenty, were selling on internet chat-rooms and online forums for £1 each. Now fraudsters can buy four for this price. Credit card details account for almost a quarter of all personal information being bought and sold, Symantec has found. Bank account details are the next most common type of fraudulently obtained information.

About 70,000 people fell victim to identity fraud in 2006, according to Experian, the credit reference agency. Symantec says that the figure could be much higher as it is difficult to know how many people’s details are being obtained, sold and used at any one time. The report links the falling cost of stolen data to a surge in “phishing” e-mails, which mimic a recipient’s bank or building society or companies such as eBay, to obtain individuals’ account information and passwords.

Since April, Symantec says that it has recorded 2.3 billion phishing e-mails sent out to internet users worldwide, an increase of 53 per cent on the previous six months.

Experian says that the interception and redirection of individuals’ post is still one of the main ways in which personal information is stolen. James Jones, of Experian, said: “The vast majority of identity fraud used to involve people’s previous address details, due, for example, to new residents taking advantage of post to accept and apply for credit. More recent trends are for fraud using present address details, which are harder to obtain, and involves the interception of people’s mail.”

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