Do you have your wallet or purse on you now?
Are you sure? You might want to check. Because if you leave it lying around, not only do you put yourself at risk, but you're putting your company at risk of ID theft too.
How you ask? Those business cards you're carrying in it - for your company, for the company rep you met yesterday - and those credit cards and ID cards all offer valuable information for a corporate ID fraudster, especially if you're a director.
Or, perhaps you left your utility bill lying around? If so, you could be opening yourself to personal ID fraud as utility bills are a key piece of identification required to open a bank account, benefits payments and other accounts.
Of course, it's fairly obvious that your wallet is important. How about other 'obvious' documents? Do you think they're that obvious?
The really hot docs
These are hot, but you might already know this:
- CVs - just ask your HR department about this one. You need to make sure the people who you let into your organisation are who they say they are. Once they're in, and they're criminals, then you're at risk and so is your company's ID.
- Director signatures - are gold-dust to a corporate ID fraudster. Have you ever seen how realistic scanned signatures can be? How carefully do you check signatures on documents you receive? A corporate ID thief can do a lot of damage if they can masquerade as a director.
- Headed paper - is convincing. If you see properly headed not epaper you automatically assume it's from that company. So, you might process the invoice and authorise the payment...
Below are some other 'hot docs' you need to keep safe, and not all of them might be as obvious.
Email printouts
The paperless office? Forget it. Whenever you want to read something thoroughly, you print it, right? For some strange reason, the act of printing something and physically having it in your possession makes it more important, therefore you can magically read it carefully with more thought and consideration.
Fraudsters don't need to do this. All they need is that email address at the top, and some idea of what the email is about, and you've given them information that they can use to fool you, or your suppliers, partners and vendors, into parting with your identity and ultimately your cash.
Post-its
How many of us are guilty of writing usernames and passwords for online accounts on a post-it note, and conveniently sticking it onto our monitor for fraudsters? This isn't just opening the way to online fraud. Your company will have important documents online that protect its identity, especially at Companies House, for example.
Post-its get everywhere. Just think of the number of times you've written something important on one - a phone number, an account number, an address - then it's gone missing. At the time it didn't strike you as important, but really, post-its can materially damage you.
Personal documents - passports, ID cards and birth certificates
If you travel often, you'll have your passport in the office often too. Don't let it out of your sight. Same with ID cards if you're in the US. So you might not have your birth certificate at work often, but you might need it for HR purposes, or you might just have it lying around at home.
All of these personal details, if stolen, can have enormous consequences. Consider that at least seven of the 9/11 hijackers obtained genuine Virginia identity documents through fraud.
The fix
We don't advocate you cutting up your passport or ID card or starting a bonfire in the office! Instead, we encourage that you think twice before tossing sensitive printouts into the bin, or lose post-its.
Integral to your own behaviour and your company's corporate ID protection policy, make sure you consider shredding. If it becomes automatic for you to do it, you'll do it - and be safe in the knowledge that you've done it.
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