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Identity theft continues to thrive despite efforts by governmental agencies, businesses, consumer advocates, and law enforcement. Identity thieves keep finding innovative new ways to steal, and are becoming more sophisticated and skilled at their craft. One-third of all fraud complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission were about identity theft - approximately 258,000 complaints in all.

The new tenant down the hall may be preparing to steal your business identity. (Item #1) The same electronic network that allows for the online publication of company information also exposes the company to online identity theft. (Item #2) Are you familiar with the laws that protect personal information? (Item #3)

Do you know what you need to do to protect personal information in your databases? (Item #4) The office is fertile territory for a would-be identity thief. (Item #5) Phishing puts the end user at risk of identity theft, but what risk is there to the organization being spoofed? (Item #6)

As always, we look forward to hearing about your concerns with regards to business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered, please email me at [email protected]

Best Regards,

Bob Mellinger
President
Attainium Corp

Quote of the Week

"There is NO 100 percent effective method to defend yourself against identity theft."
- Jonathan Kraft -

Articles

1. Identity Theft: The 'Business Bust-Out'
The "bust-out" is just one of the schemes fraudsters use to steal your business identity, a crime that has gone largely unnoticed in a legal system focused on consumer ID theft.
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb20070723_261131.htm?chan=smallbiz_smallbiz+index+page_top+stories

2. Online Identity Theft and Business
In today's electronic environment, one of the easiest ways for an identity thief to operate is to masquerade as a business by stealing its online identity. This is done through a technique known as web spoofing.
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2004/404/essentials/p50.htm

3. Identity theft: The business time bomb
More than half of the 10 million new identity thefts each year originate from a place of business, employer, or other entity (not-for-profit or local, state, or federal government). All entities are required under federal and state laws to implement policies and procedures on privacy and security of nonpublic personal information to bring IDT under control. Violations of these laws carry substantial penalties and open entities to legal risks.
http://wistechnology.com/articles/3332/

4. 10 Ways to Prevent Identity Theft
Organizations can no longer afford to be lax about protecting their customers' and employees' personal information - and their own. They need to follow basic security practices to physically protect personal information and other business data. Also, they need to ensure that our information systems, such as computer networks, aren't open targets for identity theft.
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/insurancelegalissues/a/identitytheft.htm

5. My boss stole my identity!
I.D. theft in the workplace is becoming more common, but workers are still forced to trust their employers with sensitive information.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/12/11/8395384/index.htm

6. Phishing: The business risks and strategies for mitigating them
Given the risks and prevalence of phishing, it behooves organizations to protect themselves and their customers. As long as there is valuable customer or individually identifying information available, your company could be next.
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid14_gci1118183,00.html