Criminals 'using high and low tech'

2009-07-24

White-collar criminals are creative in their efforts as they use both high and low technology, it has been claimed.

Jim Lynch, president and chief executive officer of Leaders Bank, said that such criminals are taking advantage of data breach incidents, among other situations, and the victims of fraud have to deal with the consequences.

Mr Lynch advised companies to avoid using obvious passwords like birthdays.

"Having a banker to easily turn to for advice is always important. Your banker can offer personalised advice on how to prevent identity theft and fraud or help with any other financial concern," he said.

Mr Lynch cited figures from the Javelin 2009 Identity Theft Survey Report, which estimates that 9.9 million American adults were the victims of ID theft in 2008, accounting for a rise of 1.9 million people over the 2007 figures.

It was recently suggested that 70 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses rate spam and data breach incidents at the top of their security concerns.

This was according to a report published by Business Insights, named Effective Vendor Strategies for Targeting SMBs: Vendor Positioning and the Future Outlook for the SMB IT Market, which was added onto Research and Markets' offering.

Read more security news.