text: If you live in the UK or US you can expect to have already been hacked – at least according to the real life conman turned fraud prevention expert whose escapades inspired Catch Me If You Can. Frank Abagnale, whose early life on the run from the FBI was brought to life on the screen by Leonardo Di Caprio, has said the public is underestimating the extent that their details have been stolen by digital fraudsters, the Times reported. In the 2002 Steven Spielberg film Abagnale, now 66, poses as a doctor, a lecturer, a lawyer and an airline pilot over the course of a crime spree that eventually landed him in prison. Scroll down for video . Frank Abagnale (right) has said individuals in the western world have probably already had their identities stolen. He was played by Leonardo Di Caprio (right) in the film about his misspent youth as a conman . However the former conman changed his ways and has spent the rest of his career working with the FBI on fraud detection and prevention. In an interview Mr Abagnale told of how in an age of information overload, those of us living in the western world have probably already had our identities stolen. He highlighted the recent theft of details from more than 80 million Americans whose names, dates of birth, children’s details and and social security numbers were held by the US underwriter Anthem insurance. He added that there had been so many similar incidents in recent years that societies should just assume personal information had been stolen. Mr Abagnale works as a consultant to British company LexisNexis and has written three books on the nature of fraud. He has called the constant effort by security companies to stay ahead of hackers a ‘battle’, saying it is always necessary to be thinking a move ahead of the fraudsters. Abagnale, as is depitced in the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, posed at one point as a senior medical doctor . The conman turned fraud expert also travelled the globe posing as an international airline pilot for Pan Am . Mr Abignale exaplained that while he used ink and paper to fraudulently access money, the scope for internet fraud is greater and easier for hackers . A survey by the digital consultancy Centrify shows one in four Britons know they have had their identities stolen. In 43 percent of those incidents the ensuing difficulties took more than a month to rectify. Forty-seven percent said they had to pay money to resolve the problems. Of these, 28 percent had to pay at least £60. Mr Abagnale explained these kinds of cases were not the work of some mastermind fraudster but more often than not down to employees simply not following proper procedure. Details can be lost when individuals download work files at home, insert unknown memory sticks into work terminals or open attachments on untrustworthy emails. Because fraudsters will sit on stolen information for drawn-out periods of time, people are normally hacked two or three years before their identity is stolen. However the typical reaction is to assume the theft is recent, Abagnale explained. The tools of his trade were pen, paper and charm  but Mr Abignale says what he did 50 years ago as a teenaged boy is now ‘a thousand times easier,’ adding that changes in technology always open the door to crime. As a prime example he explained that to forge a cheque in the 1960s required a special printing press. Now a coporate logo and a managing director’s signature can all be found on the web at the click of a button. Typically Abagnale will drop memory sticks with the word 'Confidential' written on them on the floor of a new client’s offices. Inevitably they will be picked up by an unwitting employee and placed in a work computer, allowing the bug he has placed on it to enter the system. Frank Abignale worked as a fraudster during his teenaged years in the 1960s - he now deeply regrets it . Frank W Abagnale Jr has become one of the world’s foremost authorities on forgery and secure documents. He has worked with the FBI, hundreds of financial intitutions and corporations and international government agencies. As well as the 2002 Steven Speilberg film made about his life, a Broadway musical also called Catch Me If You Can opened on broadway in April 2011. Between the ages of 16 and 21, he successfully posed as an airline pilot, an attorney, a college professor and a paediatrician. While doing so he cashed $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in every U.S. state and 26 foreign countries . Apprehended by the French police when he was 21 years old, he served time in the French, Swedish and U.S. prison systems. After five years he was released on the condition that he would help the U.S. federal government without remuneration. More than 14,000 financial institutions, corporations and law enforcement agencies now use his fraud prevention programs. He said the amount of money lost to fraud was ‘beyond the imagination’. Medicaid, Mr Abagnale said, and Meidcare, the two U.S. healthcare assistance programmes, pay out more than $100 billion in fraudulent claims every year. The conman turned FBI consultant insists he is not proud of his youthful adventures and said he regretted the Speilberg film. However he said he has paid back society with interest. $2 milllion of the $2.5 million he took was recovered by the U.S. Government and he has spent 40 years helping catch criminals. He stole $2.5 million dollars, $2 million of which was recovered. Mr Abagnale then spent 40 years working with the FBI .
target: Conman who inspired Spielberg film says personal details no longer safe .
  Frank Abagnale, with FBI for 35 years, says IDs have already been stolen .
  Fraud expert calls level of theft 'unimaginable' in the technological age .