Consumers share information everyday as a necessary part of social and business interactions. An untold truth is that the “exposure” of personal, financial, medical, and business information places great risk upon any person, business, school, government agency, or other organization that collects or maintains it. There are two ways that thieves can benefit from the information that your organization handles.
Identity theft is when one individual illegally assumes the identity of another to make a purchase or to take advantage of a service that you offer. In this case, the impostor is already in possession of the identifiers, for example, name, social security number, date of birth, credit card or customer account numbers that you will ask for to complete a financial or service transaction.
The other, and more damaging threat to your organization, is the loss or breach of the personal, financial, medical, and business information that thieves need to assume the identities of individuals for financial or service transactions. The unauthorized access or use of these identifiers is known as “information exposure.”
According to The Privacy Rights Clearing House, over 530 million records have been lost or stolen from businesses, schools, health care, financial institutions and other organizations since 2005!
Once these identifiers are exposed to an unauthorized third party, not only is the impact devastating to the affected entity, but the owners, board, executives, and employees may be held personally liable by law for the manner in which the information is used.
Information exposure is broad in scope and dynamic in nature. Organizations that invest time into understanding the issue and into a focused approach to safeguarding confidential and sensitive information build consumer confidence by creating a culture of safe social and business interaction.
A Medium to Large Organization A Small Business
