The FTC has announced that they will give federal institutions more time to become compliant with rules that were originally to be enfored on November 1, 2008. These rules would require that financial institutions have measures in place to be able to determine any fraudulent transactions or data breaches that are taking place. These institutions are required to have a written plan of identity theft prevention and to implement that plan. Now that identity theft has become such a widespread problem, these measures are necessary.
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Wells Fargo has recently had to begin a full probe into a crime that involved the theft of the identity information of thousands of customers. Between May and June of this year, a Wells Fargo access code was use to break into customer records of the company. This was not the fault of Wells Fargo, but rather, a company called MicroBilt which is a self proclaimed “industry leader in risk management information.” It was not until July 1 that MicroBilt informed Wells Fargo of the breach. Business between the two companies has since been terminated. The Secret Service has been notified and the recent incident is now under investigation. Around 5,000 are affected by this incident and customers are being made aware. (more…)

A recent study by the University of Michigan has found that the majority of 214 US financial institutions web sites are not as secure as their customers may think. Many customers use “bogus” sites placed out there by hackers and don’t realize it. This means that many need to check to see whether or not they are a victim of this type of scam. With today’s technology, it is easier than ever to steal the identity of an unsuspecting internet user and use it long before they realize it. The results of the study are being presented at a security conference, however, the banks will not be identified. The process used by these banks to “securely login” their users are actually transmitting social security numbers that can be determined by an outside user. So far the best protection against this would be to log directly on to the institutions website and not to use any links that are sent to you in emails.

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