For the first time, major international corporations are reporting higher fraud losses more from electronic theft of data than from physical stealing of assets, cash and inventory. With 98 percent of businesses affected, China appears to have the highest level of fraud followed by Colombia with 94 percent and Brazil at 90 percent.
A recent study performed in 2010 showed that the amount lost by businesses to fraud rose from $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion over the previous year. The majority of fraud losses have been from “inside jobs” carried out by company employees.
“How much fraud there is depends more on opportunity than anything else,” Tommy Helsby, Kroll chairman for Europe, Middle East and Africa, told Reuters. “Much more work is done electronically, and that creates new opportunities for fraud. It takes time for companies to catch up with that. There’s a real range of dangers,” said Helsby. “‘It can be simple theft or the risk of reputational damage if your firm loses customer data. That itself could be an existential threat to your business.”
Many companies are discouraged from expanding in some crucial emerging markets, China, Africa, and Latin America due to their suspicions over fraud.
“That means you miss out on some of the fastest growing markets,” said Helsby. “You can’t make the risk go away, but you can manage it through having the right systems in place.”
With fraud losses at an all time high, Cyber Liability insurance is a critical part of the risk management plan of any major corportation.
Source: Insurance Journal
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have become prevalent and the risks involved for the workplace are often not taken into account.
Here are a few threats that can be overlooked:
1. Your Friends List
“Social media” can be very helpful when making contact with customers, finding jobs, corresponding with potential clients, etc. But dangers lurk when all the people in your friends list have access to your comments. Ranting and raving about your boss and forgetting that he/she is listed as “your friend” can lead to obvious problems.
2. Employers Fail To Set Internet Usage Policy
Many companies are using blogs and social networking to their advantage; however, they can also become a liability risk. It is vital that policies are in place for how and when employees can use the Internet and that personal data is secured.
3. Hackers Look For Any Open Door
Any employee using these sites while on the job exposes the organization to phishing, being hit by spam, and malware attacks. One result shows that a quarter of all businesses have been affected by “social media” use in the workplace.
4. Providers Fail to Take Appropriate Safety Measures
Lawsuits are beginning to target the social media companies for privacy issues along with user-generated content. Several classmates set up a private group on Facebook. Now Facebook has been named in a lawsuit for over allegedly defamatory content contained in the private group’s comments.
5. Ignorance Is Your Loss
An even bigger danger is to ignore the social media frenzy. In doing so Companies lose the newest, most poplar opportunity to stay in touch with their markets, their clients, and build customer relationships. Just be wise in how your company uses social media.
Source: Patricia Vonwinkle Risk and Insurance
“Many employees disable the encryption solutions on their laptops, putting their employers at risk for data breaches, according to a study by Absolute Software Corp. and The Ponemon Institute.”
The study specifies “Corporate America” is being affected by the behavior of employees who destabilize data protection. This behavior is resulting in encryption not being enough to protect laptops and other mobile devices that have sensitive information stored on them. The number one source of data loss is from lost or stolen laptops. When a laptop has been stolen, 3 out of 4 companies will incur a data breach.
Necessary safety measures are not being taken by business owners to secure their laptops. Some business managers even deactivate their laptops’ encryption making themselves and their clients more vulnerable to identity theft. Additional layers of security can be utilized to identify data that has been accessed, even delete sensitive information remotely, and find a lost or stolen laptop. Employers can not afford to rely on the behavior of their employees nor encryption technology to provide the data protection they need according to this study.
Source: Absolute/Ponemon
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2009/04/27/99982.htm
