The Importance of Having an Effective Data Destruction Policy

The Importance of Having an Effective Data Destruction Policy

Never before in the history of the world or business has this much data existed. Today’s data includes everything from basic and general information on customers to much more sensitive, personally identifiable data. This data helps businesses do their work more efficiently, but it also creates the risk that sensitive data may leak to third parties that might want to use this information for malicious purposes. In response to this threat, governments worldwide have begun tightening the rules and regulations that govern the use of data. The most prominent of these regulations is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that was introduced by the EU to protect the data of its citizens. In turn, this has created the need for businesses to invest in better practices when it comes to working with and destroying customer data.

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4 Ways to Detect Fraudulent Transactions Using Behavioral Economics

4 Ways to Detect Fraudulent Transactions Using Behavioral Economics

The design of effective anti-fraud solutions requires a clear understanding of fraudsters’ psychology. Additionally, a strong grasp of cognitive, emotional, cultural and social dimensions goes a long way in deciphering the modus operandi of criminals.

This is where behavioral economics comes in. If you’re not familiar, behavioral economics studies the decision-making processes of individuals and how their choices differ due to various nuances of emotional states, cognitive ability and personality.

In the context of fraud risk, such subtleties have the potential to illuminate a wide variety of crime trends, which in turn, can aid with your organization’s design of anti-fraud solutions. Here are four ideas from behavioral economics that can help you spot fraudulent transactions.

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Top 5 Fraud-Related Movies

Top 5 Fraud-Related Movies

For me, one thing that came about during the pandemic is that my husband and I love watching movies together. We both have our favorite genres. He prefers the shoot-’em-up action thrillers. I enjoy comedies and dramas. But I especially enjoy a movie that involves parts of my career in the anti-fraud profession.

Recently, on an ACFE Community discussion post, a question was posed: What is your favorite fraud movie?

Well, here are the results of that post, as well as me posing this same question on the ACFE LinkedIn page. I list these in no particular order, only that they are the top five mentioned in both surveys*.

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“You’re out!”: Cracking Down on Sports Card Fraud

“You’re out!”: Cracking Down on Sports Card Fraud

In another tale of quarantine hobbies that have unfortunately become rife with fraud, the sports cards and memorabilia community has witnessed a massive resurgence of interest in buying and selling valuable collectibles. Predictably, fraudsters are capitalizing on this market bulge. Throughout 2020, when the pandemic relegated everyone to their homes, many people started going through old boxes and finding childhood objects or newly valuable memorabilia. This led to a boom in internet sales of collectibles, with eBay reporting a 142% increase in their trading card category during the year. This amounts to 4 million more cards sold in 2020 than in 2019.

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Cryptocurrency Risk Predictions for 2021 and Beyond

Cryptocurrency Risk Predictions for 2021 and Beyond

Cryptocurrency is back in the headlines. Amidst a global pandemic that has led to unprecedented increases in the U.S. money supply, institutional investors and publicly traded companies are buying bitcoin at record levels. Seen as an experimental asset class and hedge against inflation, this new wave of investment by organizations is in sharp contrast to the 2017 speculative bubble fueled by retail investors. As a testament to the evolving use cases of crypto by corporations, China’s second largest bank has raised $3 billion in capital using bonds that could be bought or sold with bitcoin, and business intelligence company MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) has even adopted bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset.

Although we are still in the infancy of crypto, we are likely beyond the point of uncertainty regarding its long-term existence in financial markets. Here are a few predictions on how crypto will continue to face unique risks in 2021 and beyond.

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