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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

Enrique Suarez Presenting:

When Selling is the Worst Way to Win Customers

By:

David Skok

Customers hate being sold to. They don’t mind getting expert help when they want to buy something. But much of the time they are not ready to buy, and one of the most irritating things is to have a salesperson try to get them to buy when they aren’t ready. Unfortunately too many people in marketing and sales positions don’t seem to understand this, and proceed to irritate their potential customers. They don’t

Do you know your Customer? Buying Cycle & Triggers

Enrique Suarez Presenting:

David Skok

Founder of For Entrepreneurs

This article written by David Skok looks at why customers expect different interactions with you depending on where they are in the buying cycle. It also examines how specific events trigger them into a buying mode. It then explains how you can use this information to make your marketing more effective.

The Customer Buying Cycle

A simple way to look at the buying cycle is to break int

Often, hucksters prey on the consumer’s desperation, which is why it’s no surprise that the No. 1 rip-off (at least between 2011 and 2012)) was bogus products promising weight loss.

VICE (vice.com) interviewed psychologist Maria Konnikova about how cyber cons are so successful—even with the most ridiculous sounding bait (Nigerian prince, anyone?).

The bait becomes more attractive when the target is receiving an influx of cyber attention. Sad to say, this trips up a person’s rationale, making them

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) releases an annual letter outlining its Regulatory and Examination Priorities for the upcoming year. In line with letters and rules from other regulatory bodies such as the SEC, NAIC, and FFIEC, the 2016 FINRA Priority Letter puts the spotlight on risk and control management. What, specifically, are the FINRA priorities of the year? Among other things, “FINRA will focus on the frameworks that firms use to develop, communicate and evaluate confo

I heard these questions on ABC Radio (that is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) recently. How are these for three great questions you can ask to help you make a decision?

1. What are my options?
2. What is the chance this will benefit me?
3. What is the chance this will harm me?

These were attributed by Dr Norman Swan of the Health Report to some research his partner and others were doing. The research showed that these three questions to your doctor result in much better outcomes. The theo