Overview
- The Identity Theft Resource Center's 2026 Trends in Identity Report draws on more than 6,000 victim reports and shows unauthorized access to phones and computers rose 78% year over year and now outpaces scams for many adults.
- The report released June 9, 2026 documents that about 26 percent of victims now face two or more concurrent identity incidents, meaning a single compromise commonly triggers follow-on fraud across multiple accounts and institutions.
- Financial harm is rarely fixed: only 9 percent of victims who lost money reported resolving their cases and people with three or more financial hits reported zero resolution.
- Fraud shifted toward new account applications and credit cards, with 62.1 percent of attempted misuse cases tied to new accounts and credit cards making up 41 percent of targeted account types, while fraudulent employment now accounts for 40 percent of misuse against children.
- ITRC leaders say AI lowers the bar to create and deploy malware, which speeds device takeovers, and the group urges simple protections such as unique passwords, passkeys or authenticator-based multi-factor authentication, credit freezes, careful handling of documents, and fast reporting to banks and authorities.