Identity thieves were busy during 2014, but a new study estimates that U.S. consumers actually suffered fewer losses than in the past.

According to the 2015 Identity Fraud Study from Javelin Strategy & Research, the number of identity fraud victims decreased slightly last year, dropping by three percent from 2013. All totaled, Javelin estimates 12.7 million U.S. consumers were victimized in identity theft in 2014, compared to 13.1 million the previous year. Total fraud losses fell as well, dropping from $ 18 billion in 2013 to $ 16 billion in 2014.

In another bright spot in the report, new account fraud – where a scammer opens a new account in the name of the victim – appears to have hit a record low in 2014. The good news does not go much further than that however. The report also found that victims of new account fraud are three times more likely to take a year or more to discover that their identities were misused than victims of other types of fraud.

Additionally, while incidents of identity fraud may have declined, they had a lasting impact on the spending habits of some of the victims. According to the survey, 28 percent of the 5,000 people surveyed said they avoided merchants after being victims of fraud. In addition, individuals whose credit or debit cards were breached in the past year were nearly three times more likely to be an identity fraud victim.

While students were the least concerned about fraud, Javelin found students were actually the most impacted. Though 64 percent said they were unconcerned with fraud, the group reported feeling more impact when fraud occurred, with 15 percent classifying it as moderate or severe. Students are also the least likely to detect identity fraud themselves. Some 22 percent said they were notified of the situation by a debt collector or when they were denied credit, three times higher than the average fraud victim.

“Despite the headlines, the occurrence of identity fraud hasn’t changed much over the past year, and it is still a significant problem,” said Al Pascual, director of fraud & security, Javelin Strategy & Research, in a statement. “Consumers, financial institutions and retailers are all taking aggressive steps, yet we must remain vigilant. The criminals will continue to find new ways to commit fraud, so taking advantage of available technology and services to protect against, detect and resolve identity fraud is a must for all individuals and corporations.”

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• NEWS & INDUSTRY
• Cybercrime

Google announced on Friday it has acquired UK startup spider.io for its technology used in the fight against online advertising fraud.

According to Google, the spider.io team has spent the past 3 years building a “world-class ad fraud fighting operation” that the search giant plans to integrate into its products. 

“By including spider.io’s fraud-fighting expertise in our products, we can scale our efforts to weed out bad actors and improve the entire digital ecosystem,” Neal Mohan, VP, Display Advertising at Google’s DoubleClick unit, wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition.

“Our immediate priority is to include their fraud detection technology in our video and display ads products, where they will complement our existing efforts,” Mohan continued. “Over the long term, our goal is to improve the metrics that advertisers and publishers use to determine the value of digital media and give all parties a clearer, cleaner picture of what campaigns and media are truly delivering strong results. Also, by including spider.io’s fraud fighting expertise in our products, we can scale our efforts to weed out bad actors and improve the entire digital ecosystem.”

Terms of the acquistion were not disclosed.

Earlier this month, Google acquired security startup SlickLogin, an Israeli company working on innovative authentication solutions that leverage mobile and audio technology.

Related: Flashback Trojan Targets Big Profits Through Google Ads Fraud Scheme

Related: ‘One-Click’ Scammers Changing Tactics: Symantec

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• NEWS & INDUSTRY
• Fraud & Identity Theft