There sure have been a lot of incidents regarding potential identity theft (though I use that term in a very broad sense to include theft of credit card numbers) lately.

I can think of three different scenarios about why this is happening:

1. More Volume. Because there happen to have been a lot more lately, perhaps because it is in vogue or there is more value to it or for whatever reasons.
2. More Reporting. Because the stigma of reporting compromises is gone and companies are more willing to report that they have been compromised. At some point, this could become so frequent that nobody cares anymore.
3. More Identification. Remember when x-rays first hit the medical scene? Well I don’t either. However, I bet there were a heck of a lot more broken bones diagnosed, even though it was unlikely that there were more bones being broken. Same goes with MRIs and cancer (although that might be a bit more debateable). Anyway, if we have a good control infrastructure, we are more likely to recognize compromises.

So, what is our takeaway from all this? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. We don’t know because we don’t have real data to support any of these hypotheses. Could be we’re actually doing better than before.