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An individual, corporation or other organization can become a victim of Identity Theft if identifying information, like a password or a bank account, social security or tax identification number, is used to perpetrate a crime. This is one of the fastest growing types of fraud and billions of dollars are lost each year due to various forms of Identity Theft.
Fraud Prevention Solutions Take steps to prevent fraud perpetrators from acquiring your proprietary information - keep information in a secure place, shred account statements before disposing and encrypt proprieatary information maintained on your computers.
However because corporate and government databases continue to be hacked by criminal organizations, it is very posssible that fraud perpetrators will acquire your proprietary information from sourcres outside of your control.
So one or more credit monitoring services should be considered so that you can be alerted quickly if your proprietary information has been used to commit a fraudulent transaction. You should also consider a fraud alert system that requires confirmation by you before accounts can be open, credit can be extended or any of your assets can be used for any purpose.
Fraud Prevention Information For a brief discussion of Identity Theft see Ethent Notes: "Identity Theft".
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Online fraud can take many forms but it usually begins with the unauthorized access to user names and passwords. If a fraud perpetrator gains access to an account's user name and password that account's assets can be depleted quickly.
Fraud Prevention Solutions
Your online user names and passwords should be kept in a secure place and if stored on your computer they (at least your password) should be encrypted.
You should also consider purchasing software that warns you about sites that attempt to send spyware to your computer and can detect and remove any spyware on your computer.
If you own or operate a website and are concerned about unauthorized web access to your users' accounts you should consider 2FThent, an Ethent fraud prevention product. Visit Two-factor authentication to see how your site can be protected from the unauthorized use of passwords.
Fraud Prevention Information
See Ethent Notes: "Account Hijacking" for a brief discussion of a major type of online fraud.
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Fraud perpetrators use phishing (pronounced "fishing") to try to obtain proprietary information primarily from individuals and sometimes from organizations. In most cases a phisher will send an email to an unsuspecting individual.
A phisher's email might appear to be from the recipient's bank even though it is actually from the phisher. The email might request the recipient to provide a PIN or passsword, social security number or other information that the phisher can use to commit one or more fraudulent transactions.
Fraud Prevention Solutions
To protect yourself from phishing scams do not provide proprietray information to a any form generated from a link in an email. If you receive a request for proprieatry information from your bank or other institution go to that institution's website and log in to your account. Then you can determine if the requested information is legitimate.
You can also contact your bank in writing, by phone or email and ask if an email you received is legitimate.
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Computer Spyware is software that has been installed on your computer to record, monitor or spy on your activities. You may have authorized the use of some spyware to improve your serach engine results or provide profile information used to offer you products for purchase. Other spyware may be unauthorized and illegal.
Unauthorized spyware may be used by fraud perpetrators to capture your account names, passwords and other proprietary information that is forwarded to a server or computer owned by a fraud perpetrator. This information can be used to commit many types of frauds.
Fraud Prevention Solutions
Be sure that you understand what information will be gathered and how that information will be used when you authorize a vendor to install spyware on your computer. Of course you must have confidence in any vendor permitted to install software on your computer.
You should also consider purchasing software that warns you about sites that attempt to send spyware to your computer and can detect and remove any spyware on your computer.
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Every day there are reports of losses as a result of the payment of altered and counterfeit bank checks. This fraud has many types of victims and all checking, saving and credit card accounts are potential tartgets for counterfeit checks. Even if an account owner writes few or no checks the funds in the account are still vulnerable to counterfeit check fraud.
Fraud Prevention Solutions
You should consider adding security features to your checks - like the ones offered by most check printers. A unique graphic or photo can give a unique look and add security to your checks. You might also consider using a positive pay system. See Ethent Views: "Positive Pay and Cryptosystem Authentication" for more information.
Ethent developed 1WFThent, a fraud prevention product, for the owners of checking, saving and credit card accounts. Use of this product can prevent the payment of altered and counterfeit bank checks. See One-way fingerprints for more information.
Fraud Prevention Information
For a brief discussion of counterfeit check scams that use portable scanners see Ethent Notes: "Portable Scanners and Counterfeit Bank Checks". For actual fraud cases that show show how fraud perpetrators turn counterfeit bank checks into cash, see Ethent Views: "Analyzing the Philadelphia Story: 1,569 Counterfeit Checks Create $4,200,000 of Losses".
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