A man walking his girlfriend's dog, in the UK, stumbled upon a bag crammed full of bank records in an alley. The dozens of files contained personal information like bank account numbers, bank card numbers and passwords, mortgage payments, house values, and job salaries of various clients. The bank claims steps have been taken to ensure this will never happen again. One has to wonder though, why was the material intended for the trash stuffed in a bag instead of shredded?

Click here for the full article.

 

 

 

The US. House has voted to expand the National Archives and Records Administration's powers. The Electronic Message Preservation Act would create mandatory requirements for electronic records management systems and require agencies to preserve electronic communications.

Supporters of the bill say regulating records laws is a necessary step due to the massive increase of electronic communications.

Read more at the FCW website...

 

A recent report from MSNBC detailed an experiment performed by Jim Stickley when he was testing a financial institution's security. He was asked to look for vulnerable spots in which sensitive information could be stolen. Jim took a back door approach and followed several different managers to their homes and very quickly had the address to their respective houses. After that, he simply went through their garbage on trash day. He found credit card statements, old bills from various service providers, and junk mail that allowed him to get an idea of their financial situation. He would then call the individual and pose as a business claiming there was a problem with a check and that he needed payment via credit card or the service would be suspended. The worst attack was when he posed as an internet service provider and claimed there was a system update and in order to keep the service going, the individual had to install new software on the computer. This software was used to let Jim gain an all access pass to the person's personal computer and passwords. His tip to avoid this whole mess of identity theft: shred everything. To read the full article click here.

Previously...we mentioned the precautions that need to be in place for people to take work home. Here is why in real life.

 

 

The IDC, a market research company, recently conducted a survey to measure increases in scanning use in industries. 52% of those surveyed said that their scanning usage has increased over the past two years, and 57% of people surveyed expected scanning use to continue to increase over the next two years. Many of the industries surveyed included: banking, insurance, manufacturing, health care, retail/wholesale, legal, education, and government.

To view the entire article, click here.