Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently issued a study called “A Human Capital Crisis in Cybersecurity,” that highlights how the United States is facing a chronic shortage in cybersecurity experts. According to the study our nation is in a very weak position when it comes to cyber security and our nation is unprepared to defend itself against increasingly sophisticated online attacks.
And you wonder why identity theft is rising. Forty percent of privacy breaches are cyber related. It is not that your IT support is not good at what they do. It is because there is no fail safe method.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Business Identity Theft
In today’s global, national, regional, and local business markets you cannot grow what you don’t protect. In professions like medicine, finance, and insurance, an organization cannot grow if it doesn’t meet certain criteria that not only encourages expansion but legally allows it. That includes such things as marketing tactics that meet ethical, federal, and state regulations. Yet in our desire to expand, acquire new customers, and reap gainful returns, we over look how our image, our brand, and our business can be hijacked. It’s a rising form of identity theft that overwhelms and sometimes wrecks organizations.
Recently the Colorado State Attorney General and the Colorado Secretary of State created an avenue in which business can come and file a complaint about their company being a victim of identity theft. That is not a common practice in most states yet. Even with state support, the ability to find criminals and prosecute them is quite difficult. Resources will only be allocated to high profile cases.
If you think that the organization is too small or too large for anyone to bother, think again. Most times a business will not know that their identities are being used elsewhere. So what is a business to do? Contact me for a check list of what you can do to protect your business better.
Recently the Colorado State Attorney General and the Colorado Secretary of State created an avenue in which business can come and file a complaint about their company being a victim of identity theft. That is not a common practice in most states yet. Even with state support, the ability to find criminals and prosecute them is quite difficult. Resources will only be allocated to high profile cases.
If you think that the organization is too small or too large for anyone to bother, think again. Most times a business will not know that their identities are being used elsewhere. So what is a business to do? Contact me for a check list of what you can do to protect your business better.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
ID Theft, Fraud, and Real Estate Transactions: Save a World of Hurt
The real estate process generally includes a buyer (or renter), seller (or landlord), financial officer, lawyer, and agent to execute the sale successfully. Within that process many more people become involved. Depending upon the deal, it includes a prequalified mortgage, credit check, offer to purchase (or rent), contract (or lease), mortgage application ($$$ paid in advance), title insurance, exterminator, homeowner’s insurance, closing, and recording the sale among it. The amount of people and sets of eyes that look at every detail of the transaction becomes an easy target for identity theft. [I have not even touched what happens after the transaction is completed … a conversation for another day.]
When you consider that eighty percent of identity theft occurs from negligence due to lack of knowledge or lack of care, and the fact that the sale is recorded for public scrutiny, it leaves every new homeowner and every old homeowner at much higher risk. Never mind the number of people that view the property in the process which may have access to enough information within view. (No one thinks of these things do they?)
This week alone, an IT guy employed by a major bank was arrested for bilking millions from both employees and unsuspecting consumers. What makes you think that identity theft doesn’t happen in real estate transactions?
Despite new laws governing how everyone in the chain of events must act with respect to the real estate transaction, there is no law that says you can’t recommend identity theft protection as a standard policy. What the feds want is transparency and clean lines of relationships.
Add a standard recommendation to every home buyer (renter) and seller (landlord) that they should consider identity theft protection. It will save a world of hurt later. Identity theft is a repeatable crime.
It will also demonstrate that the organization goes one-step beyond the FTC and State identity theft law to make consumers and landowners aware they are vulnerable and empower them with what they can do about it.
There is no statute of limitation for identity theft. If the buyer/seller decline to obtain services, then you have it as a matter of record. They can’t turn around and tell you that you didn’t advise them, making you criminally or civilly liable later. Think about it and then email me at services@m2powerinc.com to learn how to develop an identity theft and fraud program in your organization.
When you consider that eighty percent of identity theft occurs from negligence due to lack of knowledge or lack of care, and the fact that the sale is recorded for public scrutiny, it leaves every new homeowner and every old homeowner at much higher risk. Never mind the number of people that view the property in the process which may have access to enough information within view. (No one thinks of these things do they?)
This week alone, an IT guy employed by a major bank was arrested for bilking millions from both employees and unsuspecting consumers. What makes you think that identity theft doesn’t happen in real estate transactions?
Despite new laws governing how everyone in the chain of events must act with respect to the real estate transaction, there is no law that says you can’t recommend identity theft protection as a standard policy. What the feds want is transparency and clean lines of relationships.
Add a standard recommendation to every home buyer (renter) and seller (landlord) that they should consider identity theft protection. It will save a world of hurt later. Identity theft is a repeatable crime.
It will also demonstrate that the organization goes one-step beyond the FTC and State identity theft law to make consumers and landowners aware they are vulnerable and empower them with what they can do about it.
There is no statute of limitation for identity theft. If the buyer/seller decline to obtain services, then you have it as a matter of record. They can’t turn around and tell you that you didn’t advise them, making you criminally or civilly liable later. Think about it and then email me at services@m2powerinc.com to learn how to develop an identity theft and fraud program in your organization.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Life Paid Me Back
The foundation of any successful business has a set of immutable laws that bring with it the values, mores, and experiences of the owner. They are the same laws found in life. So it is appropriate to share this next blog with you.
Life Paid Me Back
When I was six months pregnant with my little daughter, my husband received a catastrophic diagnosis that would change the dynamic of our family. My little daughter was born in a time of turbulence where I became a single parent never being able to give her the kind of devotion and adoring attention that my eldest daughter received.
Reality and survival got in the way and I often felt my baby was cheated out of the white picket fence scenario that allows Mommy to stay home. In my mind every child deserved to have that experience as they come into this world. Now, twenty six years later, as my baby embarks upon her own independence, I realize that life does pay back what it took in the first place.
Catastrophic experiences have a way of reshaping long held beliefs and perceptions. It opens the door to uncharted possibilities. For both my daughters it resulted in them becoming young women of courage and tenacity that I not only respect and admire but they grew into these amazing people.
As I face the prospect of an empty nest, I am blessed that my little daughter decided to come back home from college and spend the past few years inviting me happily into her adventures. It includes the current one which involves helping her find her first apartment.
With my eldest daughter married, the last three years has given my youngest and I a joy that can only be shared by bonds born from a journey resulting in the reshaping of three lives - her sister’s, hers, and mine. Looking back I realize the decisions I made then were the right ones even if they were the scariest. I learned that courage is the not absence of fear but the ability to strive and thrive despite it. The commitment took desire and perseverance over a 10 year period of time that included overcoming the severe economic disaster from my first husband’s illness, with a dose of goals and strategic planning.
It’s a lesson that seemed to play out over and over again last year in front of my now grown daughters as we watched three close family members experience catastrophic disasters one after the other. Two out of the three survived. It also played out in my baby not making career decisions based upon fear but pushing past them to embark on better career paths.
As my little daughter searches Manhattan for that right mix of neighborhood, space, and amenities for a particular price, it not only allows me the chance to emotionally let her go, but it fulfills a wish from so long ago. To give my baby the opportunity to embark upon a world equipped not only with the tools to build a happy life but the unconditional gift of love, joy, and adoration every person deserve as they stand on the thresholds of a new beginning. Life paid me back what it took. This time my baby gives it to me.
Life Paid Me Back
When I was six months pregnant with my little daughter, my husband received a catastrophic diagnosis that would change the dynamic of our family. My little daughter was born in a time of turbulence where I became a single parent never being able to give her the kind of devotion and adoring attention that my eldest daughter received.
Reality and survival got in the way and I often felt my baby was cheated out of the white picket fence scenario that allows Mommy to stay home. In my mind every child deserved to have that experience as they come into this world. Now, twenty six years later, as my baby embarks upon her own independence, I realize that life does pay back what it took in the first place.
Catastrophic experiences have a way of reshaping long held beliefs and perceptions. It opens the door to uncharted possibilities. For both my daughters it resulted in them becoming young women of courage and tenacity that I not only respect and admire but they grew into these amazing people.
As I face the prospect of an empty nest, I am blessed that my little daughter decided to come back home from college and spend the past few years inviting me happily into her adventures. It includes the current one which involves helping her find her first apartment.
With my eldest daughter married, the last three years has given my youngest and I a joy that can only be shared by bonds born from a journey resulting in the reshaping of three lives - her sister’s, hers, and mine. Looking back I realize the decisions I made then were the right ones even if they were the scariest. I learned that courage is the not absence of fear but the ability to strive and thrive despite it. The commitment took desire and perseverance over a 10 year period of time that included overcoming the severe economic disaster from my first husband’s illness, with a dose of goals and strategic planning.
It’s a lesson that seemed to play out over and over again last year in front of my now grown daughters as we watched three close family members experience catastrophic disasters one after the other. Two out of the three survived. It also played out in my baby not making career decisions based upon fear but pushing past them to embark on better career paths.
As my little daughter searches Manhattan for that right mix of neighborhood, space, and amenities for a particular price, it not only allows me the chance to emotionally let her go, but it fulfills a wish from so long ago. To give my baby the opportunity to embark upon a world equipped not only with the tools to build a happy life but the unconditional gift of love, joy, and adoration every person deserve as they stand on the thresholds of a new beginning. Life paid me back what it took. This time my baby gives it to me.
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