According to an extensive study undertaken by Panda Security, about 10 million PCs all over the world are infected with ID theft malware, designed to steal secure information such as passwords, bank account information, etc.

Panda Security runs a free online scanner which helps users to check their PCs online for viruses and malware. The report come as a result of scanning about 67 million PCs all over the world. Considering that there are about a billion or so and growing number of computers around, the numbers could be much worse.

In the United States, ID theft affect about 9 million Americans every year, creating financial and regulatory headaches to the users. Though this was considered as less of a problem than other types of malware attacks like dumpster diving and theft of paperwork and laptops from organizations, this type of stealing is coming up as a more attractive way of taking away secure and sensitive information.