An innovation involved in the fraudulent ways of stealing credit card data has been highlighted by an expert in the sector.

Director of Experian subsidiary Credit Expert, Darryl Brown, stated that the Koobface virus was using social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, emphasising that in this period especially, people needed to be extra cautious.

Mr Bowman said: "Those most targeted by thieves are higher earners aged 26-45.

"People concerned about identity fraud, should check their credit report to see if anyone has applied for credit in their name."

He added that thieves would be able to establish new credit lines with the information obtained with by the code, which could take over 18 months to be realised by the victim.

Recently, a number of tips were given to CreditExpert customers hoping to avoid the possibility of ID fraud, with the company highlighting the necessity in monitoring post to ensure that it has not been redirected.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent).