Id Theft
ID theft: keep your information to yourself; If it can be shown that you failed to take adequate steps to protect information on your computers, your employees could engage in a class action lawsuit.(WorkForce)
From: Rural Telecommunications | Date: March 1, 2004 | Author: Perry, Phillip M. | More results for: personal information protect computer
Not long ago, good security meant locking your doors and activating your burglar alarm when you closed up shop for the day. How times have changed! Physical barricades still are essential, but today's sophisticated thieves want something more valuable than your goods: They're after the information stored on your computers.
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Last summer, businesses around the world were crippled or shut down by the infamous "Blaster" computer worm distributed over the Internet. If you weren't affected, you doubtless know a business that was. Consider that "hacker attack" a wake-up call to beef up your own computer security.
What kind of data? Anything that can be used to access financial institutions and set up bogus credit cards. There are three potential victims: 1) your business is at risk of losing money from its bank accounts when account numbers and passwords are stolen, 2) your employees are at risk when their Social Security numbers and addresses are stolen, and 3) your customers stand to lose a fortune when their credit card numbers are scooped up from your computer hard disks.
Smart cyber thieves can combine this type of information with supporting data, such as dates of birth, mothers' maiden names and other personal information to engage in one of the fastest-growing crimes in America: identity theft. The resulting damage at the very least means a plunge in employee morale and the loss of thousands of dollars in time spent re-establishing credit ratings. In the worst-case scenario, your company folds when angry customers stop doing business with you.
But there's something even more dire...
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