According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there were 54 banking-related data breaches in 2010, down from the 62 breaches reported in 2009 but nevertheless accounting for 4,853,708 exposed records. Most breaches were related to insider theft, cyberattacks, and card skimming stacks; other top breaches related to missing paper documents, stolen or missing hardware and accidental breaches.

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According to Ponemon Institute’s Second Annual Survey on Medical Identity Theft, we estimate that more than 1.49 million Americans have been targeted by this crime. With an average cost per victim of $20,663 the total national economic impact of medical identity theft crimes is more than $30 billion.

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More than 1500 tax scams reportedly target consumers and businesses through hundreds of thousands of scam emails; many use phishing to fool anxious taxpayers into visiting a scam website or providing personal and financial data in order to comply with tax filings. Protecting yourself starts by getting smart about common scams.

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Today’s headlines trumpet yet another high-profile medical data breach, this time through Health Net. This corporate catastrophe reminds us of the increasing hazard of medical fraud, which is the most expensive and time consuming to resolve of all types of identity theft . The second annual National Study on Medical Identity Theft, fielded by the Ponemon Institute provides further insight into this pervasive problem and how it affects consumers.

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Gift cards are a growing market for businesses and should be treated as valuable sales currency, with the same risks of consumer fraud and internal misconduct that are posed by credit cards. Developing robust safeguards , proper auditing and early detection and reporting of abuse are critical to protecting a program that is popular with customers and profitable to retailers.

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With some precautions, your business can safely navigate through hazardous shipping channels without fear of data piracy.

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Don’t let your bottom line go up in flames: understand how security breaches impact your business and take aggressive action to avert disaster.

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The point of sale chip and PIN payment technology is believed to be a safer form of payment than the common magnetic striped credit card. The new technology uses a card with an embedded microchip that requires the consumer to enter a unique PIN through a reader to make payment. So why aren’t more businesses adopting this technology?

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Tweet A few weeks ago I discussed a few preventative measures a healthcare business can implement to protect itself from the damages of medical fraud.  However, the fight against medical fraud requires support from many groups, including the U.S. Government.  Bringing new tools to the fight, the Obama Administration recently announced aggressive new measures it [...]

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Tweet The Holiday Season is one of the busiest times of year for consumer-facing businesses.  While Holiday sales can help improve a bottom line, the increased consumer activity also brings many headaches. One of the biggest headaches is falling victim to fraud schemes from wily consumers hoping to take advantage of business who do not [...]

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