Kroll Fraud Solutions Blog – A Dialogue on Data Security

There’s a new report out by Cisco that sheds light on the increasing importance of connectivity in an already highly connected world, and also raises some disturbing security questions for business and consumers alike. The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report reveals the internet as an integral part of respondents’ lives, ranking right up there with such basic needs as food and shelter.

To get a proper perspective on the ramifications of this study, it’s important to know the demographic of respondents to the online survey – half (1,441) were college students ages 18-24, while the other half (1,412) were end users who met certain criteria: all were college graduates or higher, employed full-time in a non-IT role in an organization with at least 10 or more employees worldwide. Market research and non-profit organizations were excluded.

The holidays are all about tradition – and one of our favorite traditions at Kroll is our yearly offering of tips and techniques that any individual concerned about identity theft can use to keep their sensitive personal identifiers safe during the holiday season. For better or worse, this time of year presents a prime opportunity for thieves.

Kroll’s Licensed Investigators, who have collectively worked with thousands of consumers to keep their identities safe, compiled the following list of tips to help you keep your sensitive information safe.

Practice safe shopping in stores

The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and this time of year always fuels interest in the latest cyber security threats that are affecting retail and associated industries. With that in mind, Kroll’s upcoming newsletter will feature tips and threat information that’s essential this holiday season. Of course, sometimes it’s not the latest and greatest risk or new technologies that companies have to worry about – and as the following case studies illustrate, retailers would do well to brush up on history.

In the past couple of days, there’s been a story out in the media about a handful of shopping malls testing a technology that reads unique serial numbers from mall visitors’ cell phones and tracks their movements. Want to know how many visitors shop in Store A and then go to Store B? Or how many people who have lunch in the food court aren’t shopping anywhere else in the mall? The system can tell you that, too.

Over the years, most class actions around data breaches have been unsuccessful due to the lack of concrete economic damages. Courts have held that damages such as the cost of credit monitoring, identity theft insurance, replacement credit and debit cards, and time and effort spent remediating identity theft issues are not compensable damages. This results in most class actions being dismissed without a trial. However, a recent First Circuit decision provides ammunition to plaintiffs seeking class action relief where at least some of the plaintiffs have experienced unauthorized charges.