The U.S. government plans to spend $56.3 million next year on technology aimed at safeguarding the online marketplace and those who operate in it, including consumers, businesses and government agencies.

“The fact is that the old password and username combination we often use to verify people is no longer good enough,” and leaves Internet users “vulnerable to ID and data theft,” Gary Locke, Department of Commerce Secretary, said at a conference today in Washington.

The Commerce Department’s allocation of $56.3 million in fiscal 2012 goes toward the development of a network of credentials that would allow consumers to prove their identities while conducting online transactions.

The network would let consumers use devices such as “software on a smartphone, a smart card, or a token that generates a one-time digital password,” according to a White House statement.

In 2010, companies lost about $37 billion to online fraud or theft, and 8.1 million U.S. adults had their identities stolen, according to a February report prepared by Javelin Strategy & Research, a Pleasanton, California-based research group.