If you have a bank account—and who doesn’t—your account is being targeted by identity theft malware, according to Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher at Panda Security.

“In 2007, we received more malware samples than in the previous 17 years combined,” Correll said in an interview with SCMagazineUS.com. “Our forecasts for 2008 indicated that we would end the year with some seven or eight million malware strains. However, we actually ended up with over 15 million malware specimens.”

Today’s hackers might have evolved from the nerdy boy geniuses who broke into computer systems for personal ego satisfaction, but they bear little resemblance to their ancestors. Instead, they more closely resemble the mega financial corporations they target.

“Today, there are huge illegal businesses behind this type of cybercrime, and criminal organizations are making a lot of profit from identity and data theft,” Correll said.

And just like other businesses can outsource their technology infrastructure, virus writers today can either rent the hardware, or contract with the hardware designers and owners to distribute their viruses for them.

Most of the major cybercriminal rings are in the former Eastern bloc countries, according to Correll. In fact, the criminals who hacked into then-presidential hopefuls Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s campaigns are thought to be from that region, as are the masterminds behind the Express Scripts data kidnapping.

The viruses are much like biological antigens that mutate and become antibiotic resistant; the software and technologies that used to work are becoming increasingly ineffective.

The only way an individual can protect themselves is to enlist the help of identity theft protection experts like those at LifeLock. Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about the technologies and strategies they employ to protect their nearly 1.5 million members. Enroll in their service using the LifeLock promo code Defense to receive a discount.

We’re all potential identity theft victims, but lately college students seem to be especially vulnerable. We’re only seven weeks into 2009, and already eight universities have reported data breaches that placed roughly 40,000 students’ personal information at risk.

The most recent university data breach occurred at the University of Alabama, and affected 37,000 students. UA officials sent out letters this week explaining that 17 of their 400 databases were accessed by hackers in November.

The information on those compromised databases included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and lab results of people who had blood or urine testing done at the UA Medical Center as far back as 1994.

The other university data breaches include

University of Rochester
450 students
Hackers

University of Oregon
Number of students affected unknown
Stolen laptop

Southern Oregon Community College
200 students
Stolen laptop

Missouri State University
565 students
Email sent with student information mistakenly attached

Kansas State University
45 students
Student information mistakenly posted on Internet

Ball State University
19 students
Email sent with student information mistakenly attached

Purdue University
962
Tax forms mistakenly mailed to wrong recipients

That big truck driving around the country—the one with the Social Security number on it? That’s the Life Lock truck. And the Social Security number belongs to Todd Davis, Life Lock CEO. Pretty cocky, huh?

The thing is, Life Lock works, and Davis knows it. There are about 1.5 members of Life Lock around the country who know it, too. Check out what just a handful of them have to say about the service at LifeLock.com. Comments like “…we continued on with our vacation knowing we were safe,” tell you how good it feels to have the Life Lock service, and just how good the service is.

And that’s what Life Lock is.  They do all the things you know you’re supposed to do, and could do for yourself free. They take your name off all the lists. They order a copy of your credit report. They place and renew the fraud alerts. Sure you could do it free—we all could. But who actually does this stuff?

Life Lock does it for you. And then they add extras that you can’t get anywhere else. They replace all your documents if you lose your purse or wallet. That’s a huge service.

And for less than $10 a month, that’s a great deal.