September 22, 2015

Identity Theft Crimes: Stay Ahead of Targets and Trends

Identity theft crimes remained at the top of the list of consumer complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission – for the 15th consecutive year.

Last year, fraudsters stole $16 billion from 12.7 million U.S. consumers, according to the 2015 Identity Fraud Study by Javelin.

Thieves steal a person’s private information directly or buy it from other information thieves, and then they use it to take money from bank accounts or run up a credit card, or they apply for new credit, a loan, health insurance, or a tax refund. There’s lots of identity theft in business too.

While the importance of information security has become a huge focus around the world, “hackers are highly adept at cracking even the strongest security measures making no one immune, including large companies or government organizations,” as a post at allclearid.com explained it.

Here are some of the current targets and trends in identity theft.

While individuals are encouraged to be more vigilant about protecting their personal information, it is critical that all workplaces prioritize information security to prevent identity theft too. This would include comprehensive security policies, compliance to industry and government privacy laws, up-to-date IT safeguards, a culture of security from the top down, and on-going employee training to keep everyone up-to-date on trends and best practices.

Find out how a document management process controls identity theft risk/impact by protecting confidential information from creation to document destruction and disposal.