9:03 am
John recently did a second radio interview on business identity theft for New Construction Strategies hosted by Ted Garrison. The construction industry, like most industries, battles with data theft on a daily basis. Insider theft, cyber crimes, social networking exposure – these are just a few of the areas that businesses need to defend against in the information economy. Listen to the interview to learn more.
| “Privacy Means Profit” John Sileo with Ted Garrison |
 |
|
|
Data breach, identify theft, and corporate espionage can cause huge damage if you don’t stop them upfront because the impact goes right to your bottom line. “We spend thousands of dollars on our computers but we don’t necessarily put the money into protecting the data that is on them,” reports identity theft expert John Sileo. Listen Sileo explain how this can destroy your company and how to prevent this disaster.
|
|
| |
6:57 am
John recently did a radio interview on business identity theft for New Construction Strategies hosted by Ted Garrison. The construction industry, like most industries, battles with data theft on a daily basis. Insider theft, cyber crimes, social networking exposure – these are just a few of the areas that businesses need to defend against in the information economy. Listen to the interview to learn more.
“DODGING THE HIT FROM IDENTITY THEFT: WHY YOU SHOULD CARE”
John Sileo with Ted Garrison |
|
|
|
Data breach, identify theft, and corporate espionage can cause huge damage if you don’t stop them upfront because the impact goes right to your bottom line. Listen to John Sileo, author of Stolen Lives, describe the horrors of not protecting yourself as well as what you must do to protect yourself.
|
|
|
1:38 pm
FTC Red Flags Rule Goes into Effect June 1st, 2010
The FTC will begin enforcing the Red Flag Rule on June 1st, which states that certain businesses and creditors must help fight identity theft as well as create an identity theft prevention plan. This applies to a very broad class of businesses: those defined as “financial institutions” and those that extend any type of credit to their customers.
In other words, if you don’t receive cash the moment you deliver your product or service to your customer, your business most likely falls under the umbrella of the Red Flags Rule. If you do any billing after the fact (i.e., accounts receivable), you are considered a creditor, and therefore in the group of companies governed by Red Flags.
This includes:
- Any Business that Extends Credit
- All Banks
- Most Brokerage Firms
- Credit Card Companies
- Mortgage Lenders
- Non Traditional lenders (utilities, dealerships, health care providers)
Building an Identity Theft Prevention Plan
According to the FTC, the identity theft prevention plan consists of four main parts:
- Identification: The plan needs to provide a process to identify patterns, activities or transactions (i.e. red flags, hence the name) that appear to be leading to identity theft.
- Detection: The plan needs to specifically call out processes and procedures that will be used to detect the previously defined red flags.
11:12 am
Identity Theft is a huge and growing problem. According to the recent 2009 Identity Theft Fraud report by Javelin Strategy & Research, victims increased 22% in 2008 to 9.9 million. When businesses are involved, the companies face billions of dollars in theft, millions of dollars in fines and, perhaps most important, the loss of customer trust.
The large impact that identity theft has on individuals lives and corporations’ bottom lines has made inexpensive biometrics look attractive for authenticating employees, customers, citizens, students and any other people we want to recognize. The most recent debate is on whether the pros outweigh the cons.
Biometrics uses physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, DNA, or retinal patterns to positively verify individuals. These biological identifiers are electronically converted to a string of ones and zeros and stored on file in the authenticator database.
Biometric Statistics
The downside or weakness of biometrics is that the risk of data breach remains relatively the same. Just as a credit card number can be stolen, the numbers that make up your biometrics and are stored in a database can be stolen. It may take longer for thieves to understand how to use these new pieces of information, but they will eventually be used.
9:47 am
While the majority of identity theft schemes prey upon individuals, small-businesses and organizations are increasingly becoming targets. Business identity theft is a serious threat, but it mostly flies under the radar simply because companies are embarrassed to discuss.
Although most companies are protected by copyright, patent and trademark laws, smaller companies lack the higher IT security measures that large companies have. According to recent studies by Javelin Strategy & Research this makes them 25% more likely to be victims of business identity theft over larger businesses. Not only do small businesses and business owners typically have larger lines of credit open than an individual, but they are unlikely to detect the fraud for six to eight months making them a prime target.
Business Identity has not been completely defined yet, but it definitely has been stolen. California has become the leader in offering identity rights to organizations and in 2006 they expanded the definition of ‘person’ in identity theft laws to include associations, organizations, partnerships, businesses, trusts, companies, and corporations. These types of amended laws have proved to deter business identity theft and provide greater assistance to those companies that have been hit.
