Did you hear the one about 36-year-old Rene Rebollo who spent his Sunday nights last summer copying a total of more than 2 million of Countrywide’s customer records and selling it to identity thieves? You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

According to numbers released November 18 by the Identity Theft Resource Center, financial institutions were responsible for more than half the 33 million personal records known to be lost in all reported data breaches so far this year, compared with just 7% of known lost records in 2007. Why the big jump in these numbers? Some experts speculate that the breaches were happening all along, but new laws in some states are requiring full disclosure of all security breaches, pushing the numbers up. Make you feel better? Are you like me, wondering what the numbers really are?

The Countrywide data breach, along with others like ones at Wachovia, Compass Bank and Americredit, all of which happened in the recent year, were insider jobs. These kinds are leaks are pretty tough to plug. Having worked in numerous IT departments, it’s my belief that someone with access to sensitive records would have an easy time stealing information. I honestly don’t know a way to stop it. Employees can email files to their home email addresses or upload files to to online data services to be retrieved later at home. Information can be copied to a DVD, a flash card, an iPod or cell phone.

So what can personal information be sold for on the open market? According to IdentityTheft.com, credit card numbers can be purchased for as little as fifty cents per number, and complete identities are sold for $14. Financial information for major corporations can be sold for $300.

Do the math (50 cents times 2 million is 1 million dollars) and you can see the financial temptation is high, even in good times. With the economy worsening, well, you get the idea. Add this to the fact that banks are being forced to disclose actual numbers for identity theft and you can see how the numbers can only go up.

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