The ID Theft Resource Center reports that data breaches for 2008 have already exceeded last year's total. 22 million of us have had our info breached due to corporate laziness -- more so than to criminals being overly clever.

For example, the British media recently reported that a computer was sold on eBay for $69 at auction. The computer contained info on 1 million people -- names, addresses, bank account numbers, mother's maiden names, digital images of signatures, etc. -- who did business with American Express and several banks.

What can you do to safeguard yourself? Clark advises people to vet their financial statements line item by line item. With credit cards, you have 60 days to dispute a charge and the issuer has to rectify the situation. But there's no protection under the law if your brokerage or mutual fund account is tapped into!

Christa is OCD when it comes to checking her brokerage account online everyday. One day, she logged in and noticed that every holding was sold, the address on the account was changed and there were instructions to wire the money elsewhere. Her vigilance foiled a crime in progress.

So be sure to check your online brokerage account at least 3 times a week. For your credit card, you can do so on a monthly basis.

In related news, criminals in Ireland recently dressed up like repairmen and installed skimming devices on ATMs. But they couldn't use the info they stole because Europe uses "smart chip" technology in its cards. So what did the criminals do? They printed up bogus cards and shipped them to cronies in the United States. We're still using easily compromised 1960s technology for our cards over here.