Cases of identity theft in the United States doubled in 2020, mainly due to cybercriminals taking advantage of people affected economically by COVID-19 who filed to receive government benefits. This is according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which received about 1.4 million reports of identity theft last year, according to a blog post published Monday, when the commission kicked off its annual “Identity Theft Awareness Week.” “Repeatedly, identity thieves targeted government funds earmarked to help people hard hit financially by the pandemic,” according to the post by Seena Gressin, an attorney with the Division of Consumer and Business Education at the FTC.

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