Right now, I am researching and writing the September cover story for SDM on new, even surprising, RMR opportunities in the industry. There are definitely a lot of viable, valuable opportunities. Today I saw some research numbers that were both sobering and supportive of an RMR opportunity I’ve frequently heard about while researching RMR opportunities: identity protection. According to the IdentityHawk 2011 Semiannual Identity Breach Report, 104,003,513 personal online identity records were breached in the last six months. I had to read that number twice. Even scarier is the report's finding that 84,527,737 more personal records were breached in the first half of 2011then in all of 2010. According to the report, the large increase of personal records breached to date in 2011 versus 2010 is due to the current cyber-attacks of large institutions. In 2010, IdentityHawk reported 250 enterprise breaches; through the first six months of 2011 it reported 158 enterprise breaches.

“The reality is that consumers may have information that can be illegally accessed due to an enterprise breach. Being alerted to relevant breaches allows consumers to have control of their information before a criminal seizes it,” states the report.

For the complete ITRC report, please go to ITRCor www.identityhawk.com.

With numbers like those reported in the ITRC report only expected to rise, it is no wonder that identity protection is growing in valueto end users — and in its potential as an RMR service dealers can bundle in with security packages. Look for some industry insight on this RMR opportunity in the SDM September cover story when it comes out.