$1.4 million Identity Theft Fraud Ring Recruited Bank Employees

In a sign of the financial services industry turmoil has created
fertile ground for identity theft by insiders, a major identity
theft fraud ring was recently uncovered that stole over $1.4
million with the aid of tellers in at least 3 major banks.

According to the New York County District Attorney, the
identity theft criminals used the stolen personal information
to mostly create counterfeit checks in the thousands.

By fraudulently cashing and depositing the
counterfeit checks, the defendants stole over
$1.4 million from one bank’s accounts and
substantial additional sums from other banks.

"Victims of this scam included private individuals,
corporations, religious institutions, hospitals, and
schools, as well as city and state government agencies."

While every major retail bank in Manhattan was targeted,
the following banks were disclosed in the recent indictment
as part of an on-going investigation:

• JP Morgan Chase
• TD/Commerce
• Wachovia
• HSBC

The fraud ring would not have been as successful in their identity theft
fraund operation without the aid of bank staff.

"These employees, often tellers, had access both to the
banks’ computer systems and to large numbers of valid
checks processed during legitimate customer transactions.

In return for cash payments, the recruited tellers
photocopied valid customer checks and printed out
copies of customer profiles, which contained the
customers’ names, addresses, social security
numbers, bank account numbers and account balances."

Serious personal information used in a very serious identity
theft fraud crime - one which may very well still yet to be
fully uncovered as the investigation continues possibly
involving these additional financial institutions:

Some of the other financial institutions affected by this
group’s criminal activities are

1. Bank of America
2. Citibank, Capitol
3. One Bank
4. Washington Mutual Bank
5. EAB Bank
6. Banco Popular
7. Amalgamated Bank
8. M & T Bank
9. Sovereign Bank
10. First National Bank
11. United Bank
12. Citizens Bank
13. Fleet Bank

With the scale and scope of this latest insider fueled identity theft
fraud, this case has the opportunity to become of one of the the
largest in 2009.

So, our tip for today is to take action by not waiting for the identity
theft criminals and the banks to notify you of your financial future
being ruined.

Check out your bank statements if you transact with any of the
financial institutions listed above. Also, for the on-going prevention
of identity theft, it would be wise to institute automatic credit
monitoring on all of your major banking and credit accounts.

Finally, as your social security number (ssn) can be used in
other major forms of fraud such as medical identity theft and
arrest warrant scams both of which can put you in jail - get
your public information profile (pip) to review for these very
serious forms of identity theft that no major credit bureau
report was ever designed to catch.

Verizon Claims 9 of 10 Corporate Security Breaches Avoidable

In one of the more exhaustive studies we've seen lately,
Verizon Business Security concluded "nearly nine out of 10
breaches were considered avoidable if security basics had
been followed."




















The study, based on 285 million compromised records from
90 confirmed breaches, suggested many of the data security
breaches did not require extensive fixes to plug the leaks.

"...did not require difficult or expensive
preventive controls. The 2009 report
concluded that mistakes and oversight
failures hindered security efforts more
than a lack of resources at the time of
the breach."

Even more alarming, though, is the vast majority of those
security breaches were not discovered by the target but
rather by other entities which had to bring it to the target's
attention:

"In 69 percent of cases, the breach was
discovered by third parties."

So, the key takeaways are the problem is growing, it's mostly
avoidable, and the organizations suffering the data security
breaches don't typically know about the problem until notified
by a 3rd party (meaning consumers).

Our tip for today is to guard your financial future and assets
against identity theft. Don't leave it up to organizations who
are either clueless or distracted with corporate mergers and
other internal issues to combat the highly focused identity theft
crime syndicates that exploit organizational vulnerabilities which
render your hard earned financial data available on the world
market.

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