The Threat of Fraud
Tracey Brewer
American InterContinental University
Security and Loss Prevention
CRJS270-1301B-01
Jade Pumphrey
March 28, 2013

Abstract
Identity theft, whether on a personal or business level is a criminal act. So, for many years individuals have plotted and schemed to come up with scams to obtain personal information from other individuals or organization to either sabotage one’s reputation or obtain financial gain. Either way, this wave of criminal activity is wreaking havoc to innocent people and successful organizations everywhere.

The Threat of Fraud

Introduction
Corporate fraud and executive identity theft are crimes that are on the rise. I don’t think corporations understand the impact this crime can have on their business. It only takes a few measures to ensure that the company is protecting against someone being able to access information that could bring the entire corporation to the ground. It can takes years to establish credit, build clientele and provide a service to the country or a community, however, it can only take the click of a mouse, that one email attachment or that one dishonest employee and your entire businesses financial data has been obtained, used or sold for the sole purpose of financial gain. Therefore, to protection your organization’s personal information. Well, it’s time to get the facts, take the necessary precautions, and start the process for what could be the first steps in protecting your organization from financial ruin.
Fraud
The word fraud can be defined as a person who intentionally uses deceit, provides misleading or false information in an attempt to attain someone’s money or to scam someone into buying or selling property (Hill & Hill, 2005). Fraud can also be the acts committed on behalf of an organization like padding financial records to make the company’s profits/earnings appear greater than they actually are, as well as against an organization like stealing money or assets (Career Education Corporation, 2010). There are many different examples of fraud like embezzlement, management fraud, investment scams, customer fraud and a few more. Corporations can use fraud to persuade consumers into investing money into a product or the company. When you are looking for employment in the newspaper or online, you may read an advertisement for “Earn money at home”. This scam, is when an entity may promise high profits for part-time earnings that can be made by making or selling a product from your home, in return you may be asked to purchase a starter kit, or instruction on how the plan may work before you can get begin the process ("Hesch and Associates," 2007). Another example of fraud in business is an executive setting up “ghost employees”, falsifying timesheets and receiving the paycheck for that ghost employee ("ACFE," n.d.).
Identity Theft in Business What is identity theft? According to the World English Dictionary, identity theft is when someone takes on the identity of another individual by use of their personal data or documents to access money or establishes credit without that individual’s knowledge ("Dictionary.com Unbridged," 2013). However, corporate identity theft is the criminal act of stealing the company’s name, altering registration history and establishing credit with that name for the use of purchasing items that may be bought or exchanged for cash. This type of identity theft can have a domino effect and break down an entire corporation, as well as, any financial institutions and retailers that engage in any business transaction with this entity. It can result in the destruction of the company’s reputation, their future credit relationship with banks and retailers, operational problems, employees and even the consumers, not to mention the amount of money and the time it could take to fix the damages (Kemp, 2010). In 2008, close to 2,000 corporate executives were targeted in a email scheme that listed the names of executives, their phone numbers and their company name stating they were being subpoenaed to court for some sort of legal violations against their company. The email required the recipient to click the link to install an add-on in order to view the subpoena. By agreeing to the add-on allowed access of software that could steal usernames and passwords when online banking and other programs that required executive credentials were visited (Richardson, 2008). Enron’s accounting scheme and Madoff/Ponzi investment schemes are just a few of the financial scandals that have affected corporate executives. Preventing Fraud and Identity Theft
There are organizations that will provide step-by-step advice on how to protect your identity, financial data, your computer, your business and how to recover from the crime, such as Identity Theft: Prevention and Survival (Frank, 2010), Get Safe Online (getsafeonline.com) and The Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) (I3P, n.d.). These are just three of many organizations that will guide you to protection your investments, employees and your company’s reputation. In order to provide effective protection there are some measures that need to be in place. In this day and time, everything has become digital, wireless, remote access and internet based, therefore when you have a corporation you must utilize all of these modes of technology to run your business. So you should have a strong firewall protection to prevent access to your servers and networks, anti-virus spyware, safe internet use, safe use of browsers, back-ups for all computers and strong passwords. These prevention methods are a step in the right direction to block any criminal intent for access to your important information and financial data. Furthermore, on the corporate, executive and business side of prevention, the company should provide staff training, staff policies that need to be strictly enforced, data loss prevention, data encryption and a business security plan in the event that the company’s information and financial data has been compromised ("Get safe online," 2012). As a result, this will not only make employees aware of fraud risks, it can provide the tools need to evaluate, design and implement procedures that will proactively prevent any attempt of fraud by and/or against the company.
Loss Prevention Planning and Strategies
When a business implements programs that will prevent the loss or theft of money and/or merchandise is called loss prevention ("InvestorWords.com," 2013). Loss prevention is necessary to protect retailer owners again shoplifters by placing special devices on/in merchandise that will alert management when something is being removed from the store that has not been purchased and in the corporate world it’s the theft of important financial data or personal employee information, data being stored on company provided portable devices and then being lost or stolen from an employee. In most organizations today there are certain strategies incorporated in a loss prevention plan that may include all employees and executives have a level of clearance as to what they are able to access from the company’s servers, as well as creating, educating and enforcing all policies about the use of proprietary information with employees, not allowing the use of portable devices, installing data encrypting software to prevent someone for reading pertinent information, and consider investing in a data loss prevention solution ("Get safe online," 2012). Upon employment of the company, all employees will be educated of the policies and procedures of the company’s fraud policy and in order to keep the organization protected, providing fraud protection seminars on a yearly basis, so that everyone is informed and educated of the dangers this crime can have on, not only the corporation, but the employees and consumers too. With this training a certified fraud examiner would be on-sight with learning materials and professional advice as to prevention steps. Several groups of employees will be scheduled to attend the mandatory classes, be tested on what they learned and sign a confidentiality agreement that they understand all the risks and consequences if any policies are broken.
Conclusion
In summary, corporate identity theft exist, there may not be a way to completely stop the crime from happening, however there are ways to prevent and protect against the travesty that can come from this criminal act. Your organization has been armed with all the tools needed to incorporate and implement the necessary loss prevention plan to safeguard your financial and personal information from internal and external access that could take years and millions of dollars to recover from?

References
Business Fraud and Examples of Fraud. (2007). Retrieved from http://howtoreportfraud.com/report-other-fraud/business-fraud
Career Education Corporation (Producer). (2010). The threat of fraud. In My unique student experience [Video podcast]. Retrieved from https://mycampus.aiu-online.com/courses/CRJS270/u1/hub1/hub.html
Frank, M. J. (2010). Identity theft: prevention and survival. Retrieved from http://identitytheft.org/
Get safe online: free expert advice. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.getsafeonline.org/
Ghost employees. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.acfe.com/article.aspx?id=4294968370&terms=(ghost+employees)
Hill, G. N., & Hill, K. T. (2005). Fraud. In The Free Dictionary. Retrieved from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fraud
Identity theft. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com Unbridged. Retrieved March 30, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/identity theft
Kemp, B. P. (2010). Corporate identity theft information. Retrieved from http://www.sos.ga.gov/corporations/idtheft.htm
Loss prevention. (2013). In Definition of loss prevention. Retrieved from http://www.investorwords.com/8062/loss_prevention.html
Richardson, D. (2008). Scam alert: corporate executives target of identity theft schemes. Retrieved from http://www.givemebackmycredit.com/blog/2008/04/scam-alert-corporate-executive.html
The Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P). (n.d.). thei3p.org