That is the hypothesis Avivah Litan, security analyst at Gartner proposes in a November Forbes article. She said that “in recent months, banking clients have been warning her of a spike in Fraud, much of it based on the use of stolen financial data. There's been a marked increase in the number of attacks and the number of successful fraud attempts.”

Litan cites the growing pool of unemployed IT workers as a major fraud catalyst because they possess the “technical abilities needed to steal data or perpetrate fraud” and intimate knowledge of former employers’ IT systems.

Desperation often pushes regularly rule-abiding people into taking risks they wouldn’t in normal circumstances. "In times like these, people need the cash," says Litan. I am afraid she has identified yet another serious threat to the financial system and your bank account in the coming months.