Your identity has a lot of value, especially in the wrong hands. As unfortunate as it is, employers have a lot to do with the stolen identities of their employees. Good cyber risk management helps to avoid making your organization the root cause of an identity theft situation. This article will explain why cyber hackers aim to steal identities from workplaces and how you can provide an adequate defense on behalf of your employees.
Identity theft is not a joke- 15 million individuals suffer every year. Identity theft is a little different than identity fraud, however. Theft is when personal information is exposed and taken without permission. This is happening all the time by malicious software like spyware, but it can also happen when legitimate websites and services get infiltrated by cybercriminals. If a reputable online store (or even a database for a brick and mortar store) gets hacked into, your personal information can be stolen. That's identity theft.
Identity fraud is when that data is misused for financial gain. This is when things start to get very dangerous. In 2022, $56 billion dollars were accumulated by cyber criminals through identity fraud. What does that mean for the average person? On average, victims of identity fraud had $4,841 dollars stolen per victim. Trouble is, the world has had to improve drastically to protect consumers from identity fraud. This means higher costs of doing business which then get reflected on prices of products and services. In other words, because of identity fraud, we all lose.
Employers are responsible for a great deal of personal and private information regarding their employees. Employers have a responsibility to protect employee information, whether employees like it or not. Third parties may want that information for a variety of reasons, some of which are bureaucratic, financial, nosy, or even dangerous.
In dealing with these realities, employers should try their best to keep some important basic principles in mind:
All information relating to an employee's personal characteristics or family matters is private and confidential.
Information relating to an employee should be released only on a need-to-know basis, or if a law or court requires the release of the information.
All information requests concerning employees should go through a central information release office within your organization.
There are plenty of ways, but here are a few popular methods:
Almost half of all reports of identity frauds are discovered by the user first, although banks and credit card companies have methods in place to stay on top of it as well. If your financial credentials are stolen, you need to contact your bank and/or credit card companies immediately, both by phone and in writing. You'll want to file a police report with details about where your identity was stolen, what you believe was or could have been stolen, and documented proof of the crime.
You don't want to risk identity fraud. Monitor credit reports closely, shred sensitive mail and documents before throwing them away, and ensure your computers and network are running latest security updates and antivirus, as well as other security measures.