Tag Archive for: Business Identity Theft

Business Identity Theft Radio Interview, Part II

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.

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Business Identity Theft Radio Interview, Part I

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.

LISTEN NOW

 

Uncovering Business Identity Theft

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.

Most commonly criminals assume the name of a business, rent out office space in the same building and order everything from corporate credit cards to hundreds of computers and equipment. In one instance the culprit billed a law firm for $70,000 in purchased equipment, hired a moving truck and disappeared from the building before the fraud was ever detected.  This has been not only costly, but timely. If businesses had the same protection as individuals this would have been quickly resolved and the victims would have moved on. Credit card companies have also followed suit and began to remove the distinction between business identity theft and individual identity theft.

The lack of publicity on this type of Identity theft is solely due to a lack of reporting by companies. Businesses are required by federal law to notify consumers who’s personal information has been hijacked, but not if their businesses identity has been stolen. In order to save face, most business owners would rather not own up to such a breach to avoid looking like the pawn in a criminals scheme. Without incentives and assistance to a company who has experienced this type of transgression there is little reason for them to come forward.

Until businesses and their owners come forward to help uncover business identity theft there will be less laws in place to deter criminals and small businesses will remain vulnerable.

For more information on this issue check out BusinessWeek.

John Sileo provides identity theft training to human resource departments and organizations around the country. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. To learn more about having him speak at your next meeting or conference, contact him by email or on 800.258.8076.



Biometric Identity Theft: Stolen Fingerprints

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. (To see some of the materials that influenced this article, please visit George Tillmann’s excellent article in Computerworld).

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.

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.

Ultimately, this could be more dangerous than having your ATM PIN, credit card number, or Social Security Number stolen, and it will take longer to clear up.  In a worst-case-scenario, someone inside of the biometric database company could attach their fingerprint to your record — and suddenly they are you. The reverse is also true, where they put your fingerprint in their profile so that if they are convicted of a crime, the proof of criminality is attached to your finger.

What will stop thieves from electronically sending your stolen fingerprints to your bank to confirm that you really do want to clean out your bank account through an ATM in Islamabad? Fingerprints, when stored in a database, are nothing more than long strings of numbers. What will you do when your digitized fingerprints wind up on a government No-Fly list? If you think it takes forever to board a plane now, wait until every law enforcement agency in the free world has your fingerprints on file as a suspected thief or, worse, a terrorist.

The reality is that biometrics could be a great alternative to securing one’s identity – and they are quickly becoming a part of every day identification.  But we can’t go forward into the new world of biometrics thinking that it solves all of our problems. Like the “security codes” on the back of our credit cards, like the two forms of authentication required for most banks, like wireless encryption standards – thieves eventually find work-arounds. And so too will they work around biometrics. If we implement biometrics without doing our due diligence on protecting the identity, we are doomed to repeat history — and our thumbprint will become just another Social Security Number.

John Sileo became America’s leading Identity Theft Speaker & Expert after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer and the FDIC. Contact John directly on 800.258.8076.

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