Consumers who've had to invest months of time and gallons of antacid on resolving an identity theft problem may find cold comfort in the revelation that identities like theirs are painfully cheap when they're traded online. The going rate for a "complete" identity (including name, address, passport, credit card info, driver's license number, and even banking passwords): About 120 bucks.

In stark contrast to that pittance: The average identity theft-based fraud actually reaps over $21,000 for the perpetrator.

Why so cheap? Primarily it's because there are so many stolen identities available, so crooks who are willing to take the risk on using someone else's identity to drain bank accounts and run up bills have a vast number of IDs to choose from. In a perverse way that's good news: Even if your account and identity information is compromised, there's a good chance that you won't actually be the victim of a financial crime because the ID may never be used.

Of course that does mean a vast number of consumers are essentially at the whim of criminals. The related security stats uncoverd by Get Safe Online are staggering: 48 percent of internet users who have anitvirus protection don't keep it up to date, and 47 percent don't use any sort of anti-phishing software. And 20 percent use one password for all internet accounts.

Scary stuff, but there are steps you can take to prevent identity theft. Remember to use strong passwords, change them at any hint that they could be compromised, anstall antivirus software and keep it up to date, and check your credit reports every year. (Rather than checking with all three agencies at the same time each year, I check one agency every four months on a rolling schedule for more up-to-date oversight.)