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Cyber criminals have compromised the data records of more than 215 million Americans and if the trend continues, by 2014 all United States residents will be affected.

These statistics drive Fred Chang, research professor of computer sciences, and the work he and other faculty and graduate students do in the cyber security labs at the Center for Information Assurance and Security.

The center, housed in the Department of Computer Sciences, was founded in 2004 to address the nation’s growing cyber security problems. Since then the problems have changed and only gotten worse.

“In the early part of the decade it was about recognition,” Chang said. “Hackers wanted to break into systems to show they could do it. Today most are about money and once that happens it gets more serious. That’s the key difference between then and now.”

Chang said today’s hackers are more professional and getting better every day at what they do.

“Many attacks are quite professional and well funded. It feels more like a business,” he said.

One of the biggest problems in cyber security today is a system of underground servers all over the world, primarily in the United States, that collect Social Security and credit card numbers and then place them for sale on the Internet.

“It is very eye opening,” Chang said. “At the end of 2005 one server had 40,000 credit card numbers for sale per month online.”

According to Chang, the problem of identity theft has risen significantly in the three years since the lab was formed.

At least one in 20 U.S. adults has been a victim of online fraud and one in 50 has been a victim of identity theft, according to research from the center.

“The cyber security problems that face us all today are really daunting and getting worse,” Chang said. “It’s going to continue to get worse before it gets better.”