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Article Type:: Analysis

Identity theft threatens business

Article Date: Apr 21 2005

Corporate identity theft is on the rise and it’s costing companies a fortune. As risk management specialist Insight Consulting outlines, corporate identity theft allows criminals to order goods or obtain services from suppliers on company accounts, or to conduct industrial sabotage.

For the company that becomes the target of such activity, the impacts could be direct financial losses of misappropriated services or goods, possible fines resulting from breach of regulatory rules, and/or loss of actual and potential customers resulting from harm to the company’s reputation.

The Home Office estimates that more than 100,000 people in the UK are affected every year by some form of identity theft. One way that identity, passwords and preferences are being accessed and stolen is through keystroke logging. Fraudsters often use this to capture personal details.

Electronic eavesdropping
This means that anything you type on a computer can be captured and stored. It can be done via a hardware device attached to your PC or by software running almost invisibly on your machine. Some recent viruses are capable of installing such software without the user's knowledge.

‘Fraudsters can log your keystrokes and mouse clicks and can record what you are doing. They can log passwords too, and it is akin to eavesdropping on an electronic scale,’ believes Richard Bradley, channel manager at security solutions provider Computer Associates.

Need to know: Stealing your identity

Phishing: When false e-mail messages are sent to a wide audience, in the hope that some people will reply to them. They are designed to look as if they come from a bank or similar organisation asking recipients to confirm account details

Web spoofing: When fraudsters set up websites to elicit information as part of a seemingly legitimate transaction

Stealing financial information: Some fraudsters will scour rubbish bins behind offices and shops, looking for credit card slips

Source: The Department of Trade & Industry

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