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13.1 million people were stricken by identity theft last year in America, reports a study by Javelin Strategy & Research which reveals:

• Many people who don’t trust their banks are unwittingly doing things that make crime easier for crooks. This includes not using the bank’s protection services such as e-mail alerts.
• Oddly, there are more victims than ever, but the total amount stolen is less. But that hardly matters when you consider that in the past six years, $112 billion have been stolen.
• 18 per

Cyber criminals have been attempting to extort money from individuals and companies for many years, and the latest attempt to take advantage of others is by using Ransomware as a Service, or RaaS.

A ransomware virus infects a computer when a user clicks a link and unknowingly download a malicious file. The ransomware virus then encrypts the computer’s files and promises to render them useless unless the victim pays a ransom. The cost varies greatly and groups sending these out can bring in hundre

Ahead of the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book Summit taking place April 19-20, the Center for Financial Professionals have reviewed the Finalisation paper for the revised capital standard for market risk. Presenters and panelists will be presenting their findings of the paper and amending sessions in line with the changes.

With the Basel III capital framework for trading activities weaknesses being highlighted, resulting in undercapitalized trading book exposures ahead of the 2007-8 financi

Once a thief knows your Social Security number…you’re at very high risk for having your identity stolen.

A report on bankrate.com says that the IRS is warning of a cyber attack on its electronic filing PIN application. Thieves infiltrated it with malware in an attempt to claim other people’s refunds as their own. Over 450,000 SSNs were involved, and over 100,000 of them enabled the hackers to access an E-file PIN.

Endless scams are directed towards SSNs, like the classic phishing attack. A phishin

Reduce your cost of claims by as much as an additional 30%.

Serving 13 countries, Gleason Technology works with Risk Managers to better monitor critical operations that could potentially lead to a hazard within the facility. Their patented location-driven technology time and date stamps any operation while verifying all objectives were within compliance and have met the standards set by the company. 

The results are incredible!

Identity thieves are after children’s Social Security numbers. With this number, a thief can do so many things like open a credit card account and rent an apartment. Kids’ SSNs have great appeal to crooks because:

• A child’s record is usually very clean.
• This means fertile opportunities for new credit lines.
• Kids usually don’t check their credit reports and thus the fraud can go undetected for years.

Parents should consider putting a freeze on their kids’ credit. Simply getting the credit monitored w

You may be putting your company at risk simply by hiring a new employee. Why? Because that person could have a hidden, malicious agenda.

This is known as an inside threat, and it means that someone within your organization is planning or conducting activities meant to harm the company.

There is a pattern that most insider threats use: The first step is to gain access to the company’s system. Once they have access to the network, they will investigate it and seek out any vulnerable areas. The malic

Regular risk assessments are one of the most important pillars of any risk management department. Although performing risk assessments is now considered best practice, it’s easy to overestimate their comprehensiveness. As a result, some risk managers are doomed from the start to mediocre results.

For a quick check on the adequacy of your risk assessments, determine how many of the following 5 best practices your program has ingrained in its ERM process.

See the graphic below to learn our 5 tips fo

Do you shop at Amazon.com? Are you aware they have a back door through which hackers can slip in?

Let’s look at Eric’s experience with hackers and Amazon, as he recounts at medium.com/@espringe.

He received an e-mail from Amazon and contacted them to see what it was about. Amazon informed him that he had had a text-chat and sent him the transcript—which he had never been part of.

Eric explains that the hacker gave Eric’s whois.com data to Amazon. However, the whois.com data was partially false beca

Have you ever thought about the role strategic advisors such as accountants, lawyers, risk managers, auditors, HR managers, IT managers and many other back of house advisors play in the success of organisations? I mean really thought about it? You probably have.

If you are a strategic leader receiving the advice you have probably thought about the need for key expertise and advice that you can rely on. Key elements required to develop trust in the relationship.

If you are a strategic advisor you h

Your account passwords should be as unique as your fingerprint—to make them less hackable by crooks using password-guessing software that can run through millions of possible combinations in just minutes. And if you have an easy password, there may be a hit within 10 seconds.

Think this software can figure out your password of “password1” or “monkey”? These are among the most used passwords. Needless to say, so is “1password” and just “password.” And “login.” What are people thinking?

Every year,

A few decades ago, faculty members at the University of Michigan were researching the major indicators of effective organizational performance.  What came from this research was an incredibly useful model for organizing and understanding a wide array of organizational (and individual) topics.  These include theories on Organizational Effectiveness, Corporate Culture, Leadership Competencies, Stages of Life Cycle Development, Financial Strategy, among others.

This model is the Competing Values Fra

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a methodology for identifying the most important limiting factor—i.e. constraint—and systematically improving it.  It was developed by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt, introduced in 1984 book, The Goal.

TOC differs from traditional management views, in that traditional methods seek to make improvements throughout the organization.  They divide the organization into smaller, more manageable pieces.  The objective, thus, is to maximize the performance of each part, resulting

Cybercriminals know that the best way to get their claws on the next victim is to appeal to their emotions, not logic.

There’s lots of scary things in life, and one is learning that your computer has been infected with a virus. If this happens, you’re now vulnerable to spending money on getting rid of the malware. The tactic of scaring users is called scareware.

• A pop up tells you “Warning! Your Computer Has Been Infected with Malware!”
• The pop-up can be triggered by visiting an infected website or

In challenging markets with stringent regulations, Customer-Driven Derivatives business goes on, someone somewhere has to earn bread. Practitioners including risk managers need to grasp the full picture, from models to products, from risk features to hedging, regulatory requirements to economic values.

Understanding and managing risks is a common denominator across trading, quantitative modelling and risk management. Financial institutions must optimise to stay competitive or alive.  My new book

Harvard i-lab | You Have a Great Idea and Nobody Cares

Published on Jul 1, 2014

You have a great idea and nobody cares: How to figure out who cares and how to get them to buy from you.

Join Richard Banfield for this workshop, which will give you the essential tools to identify who your customers are and what the various touch points will be along their journey with your product or service. These tools are the same tools used by leading design-driven companies like Apple, Google and Dyson to develo

Most people have heard of storing information in “the cloud,” but do you know what this means, and if it is even safe?

A cloud is basically a network of servers that offer different functions. Some of these servers allow you to store data while others provide various services. The cloud is made of millions of servers across the globe and most are owned by private or public corporations. Many of those corporations are diligent about security, and you are likely using the cloud whether you know it

This week I worked with Gemalto, as part of Gemalto’s #ChipAwayAtFraud campaign. I was tasked with using my “chip” card when making a bunch of every day purchases like getting coffee and shopping. Gemalto, one of the world’s leaders in digital security, wanted a real-world take on the EMV card experience, which includes the security benefits EMV cards presents. You know EMV; it’s the “chip” credit card that, by now, you should have.

Here’s what I learned:

A significant portion of the retailers I f

Evidence is mounting that it is no longer an option to ignore investments in this important organizational capability. Companies need a rigorous enterprise risk management framework to effectively compete in today's uncertain environment. To help companies understand why they need ERM, here's an excerpt from my take on how enterprise risk management enables the business to move faster and overcome disruption:

The wider adoption of strategic risk management cannot come fast enough to save everyone