Paper Sample on Defending Against Identity Fraud in Business: Threats, Trends, and Prevention

Introduction

Fraud can cause tragic losses to any business. Losses from fraud affect business substantially due to the threat existence of a company. However, fraud is relatively rare, but they do occur. In a networked digital world, mainly, near-catastrophic failures can happen in a short and go unnoticed. The results of massive losses can enact financial, loyal, reputational, and other brand-associated costs, which will affect business for an extensive duration. A fraud prevention program's price is relatively small compared to a major failure due to prevented fraud. One-step to avoiding fraud is through the identification of the source of fraud.

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Issue

Despite the identity fraud in the United Kingdom is dropping, the number of online scams continues to increase, particularly in the retail sector. The article further points out that identity fraud still accounts for almost half of all fraud cases as reported by Cifas (Muncaster, para.2). Online accounting fraud stands at 87%; this figure is set to rise as representatives contacted last by info security confirmed 84% of identity fraud happens via online channel. Besides, identity fraud on online retail accounts has increased by 24%. In contrast, there has been a gradual increase in fraudulent applications for debits and credit cards amounting to 12% of identity fraud (Muncaster, para 3.4). On the brighter side, Cifas reported a 12% depreciation in the number of bank accounts being aimed by identity fraudsters, and a 34% reduction in atrial-to-access mobile phone contracts (Muncaster, para.2-4).

According to Accountants, are good at fraud exposed one way through which identity fraud happens. (para,1) The article claimed that out of 80 cases of fraud in the finance sector from 2015: 67 cases account for fraud within an organization and only 13 external fraud incidences (“Accountants are good at fraud’’, para.1-2). The external incidences of cases coordinated with within cases to conduct fraud. One of the perplexing findings from the report was the duration of time over which fraud is committed. Considering an average, a worker is employed for not less than five years before becoming a fraudster.

Further, the article asserts that fraud itself takes about 32 months before being noticed. This kind of fraud is long and slow, but it has a substantial effect on a company. Fraud that is seen after “32 months have passed has an average financial loss of $382,750, while that which continues above 2 years eight months has an average impact of $479,000’’ (“Accountants are good at fraud’’, para.1-2).

Discussion

The significant finding of the article is that personal information is the primary facilitator is the fraud process. The findings raise an alarming concern for the security industry. Nonetheless, only 6% of the cases were discovered using software and systems. Whereas, the majority of the cases were detected using routine and impromptu auditing. Based on these findings, the article discourages the trend of installing security software and encourages companies to focus on enforcing policies and controls, introducing security alertness training, and guarding personally detectable information. In addition, the report suggests that businesses should always be monitoring the workforce, observing workers for mysterious financial gain, paying extra attention to those in superior positions such as managers and accountants, and auditing staff online actions

Conclusion and Implication

From the review of the two articles, it is clear that fraud stands as a substantial threat to the business, rending identity fraud protection a key priority business cannot exist without as scammers originate not only from outside but also from within an organization. They are adopting new techniques each day that keep challenging the use of security software in the detection of a threat. Therefore, this kind of fraud most happens in the form of impersonating other individuals, such as account theft and phishing. The majority of fraudsters practice ‘clean fraud’ which makes it hard to detect by security software. Hence, this implies that using security software is not adequate to prevent identity fraud; businesses need to educate both their staff and client on how to protect their personal information. On top of that, companies need to be conducting regular and impromptu auditing. In other words, the protection of personal data should be handled as a collective duty. Everyone, including clients and firms, needs to take action to prevent identity fraud.

Works Cited

"Accountants are good at fraud." 12 August 2012. Info Security. https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/accountants-are-good-at-fraud-says-us-secret/Website. 3 October 2020.

Muncaster, Phil. "Info Security." 16 August 2018. https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/uk-identity-fraud-falls-but-online/. Website. 3 October 2020.