Maybe not

A new Javelin Strategy and Research study (via Internet.com) shows that online sources of ID fraud are declining and that they weren't by any means the brunt of the problem in the first place. Only nine percent of ID fraud incidents were attributed to hacking, viruses or phishing. Stolen wallets accounted for 30 percent of the incidents. Fully 70 percent of the incidents occurred via non-online means.

Looking at fraud overall - not just stolen identities - the web placed very high, with 55 percent of cases reported to the FTC in 2005 coming from the web. The brunt of those came from auction trades gone sour. That figure is slightly lower than the year previous.