Reducing the risk of fraud and identity theft at work

According to Financial Fraud Action UK, financial fraud losses came up to about £768 million in 2016. With the internet becoming increasingly integrated with both our work and personal lives, the issues of fraud and identity theft have evolved together with it. Traditional methods like dumpster diving for personal information or retrieving information via cold calls are of course still around, except now they exist in tandem with more technological ways of information theft. Data breaching via hacking comes to mind, but there are also more mundane ways of information theft – it can be as simple as a thief standing near a person when they’re entering a PIN or an unprotected password on a computer screen.

Educate your employees

Employees are the lifeblood of a company and it is incredibly important that everyone is aware of and knows at least basic security against information fraud and theft. Knowing too the hallmarks of a scam call or a phishing email will go a long way in helping to keep your company’s information private and protected.

Encrypt company information

Encrypting sensitive information means to encode them so that only authorised people with the correct passwords will be able to access them. This is useful for any company device that carries information, such as laptops or hard drives.

Cloud storage is continuously getting more popular in workspaces for its ease of use and communication between colleagues. Make sure too to utilise encryption with files stored in the cloud; companies like Dropbox offer end to end protection for your files.

Maintain computer security

Change your passwords every six months or so. And when you do, you also need to create passwords that are difficult to guess. Using common everyday words, or numbers that pertain to your birth year make it easier for the passwords to be guessed, or ‘brute-forced’. Instead, try using phrases and the first letter of each word in the phrase, combined with random numbers and symbols, among other possible ways of generating passwords.

There are several ways of ensuring that your company isn’t susceptible to white collar crimes such as financial fraud or identity theft. At Better With Money, we strive to improve the financial understanding of your employees and educate them on how to prevent fraud inside and outside of work. If you’d like to know more, whether it’s about financial security or how better money management can help, please contact us. We’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.