A fundamental tenet of consumer security is reviewing credit reports. Kroll advises every consumer to perform periodic reviews of their credit reports (no less frequently than every quarter). By doing so, a consumer is better able to spot suspicious activity and potentially lessen the damage to his or her financial identity.
The “bust-out” scam has had many variations, but it’s a tried-and-true method that has actually seen resurgence in recent years, as thieves target small to medium-sized businesses that may not have the resources or the knowledge to catch this type of identity theft until it is too late.
This identity theft scam frequently involves a perpetrator posing as an authorized employee of the business to open lines of credit or purchase merchandise that is then charged back to the “real” business account. With only a few exceptions, states generally do not provide the same types of legal protections for businesses that are afforded to consumers who are victims of credit-related identity theft or account takeover.
Businesses shoulder something of a “double burden” when protecting sensitive information. They must protect the company’s Unique Business Identifiers (UBI), as well as the Personal Identifying Information (PII) of individuals such as employees, customers, students, and other stakeholders. Protecting UBI preserves the company’s ability to thrive and reduces the likelihood that it will be exploited for financial gain. Protecting PII from the threat of unauthorized use is also vital to the company’s livelihood.
This should be easy to implement as practically every business, regardless of size, performs some type of background screening of job applicants. More and more, it’s thought of as an essential tool – checking a person’s history can unearth a tremendous amount of useful information.
To be truly effective, however, a screening program must be thorough – and that means nationwide searches, not just by local jurisdiction. Otherwise, the check may fail to reveal things like felony convictions, if, for example, the employer only checked records in the cities that were listed on the job seeker’s resume instead of the entire country.
To kick off the first week of the New Year, Kroll Fraud Solutions encourages businesses and consumers alike to make data security a New Year’s resolution.
To help you do so, each day during the first week of 2010 we will post a data security tip for businesses.
Check back on Monday, January 4 for the first in our series.
