MONEY

Fighting cyber crime starts at home

Bryan Ansley

Unless you work within the cybersecurity industry, I bet you don't truly understand how scary and damaging cybercrime adversaries can be to your business and personal reputation.

Let me help you understand.

•The money in cybercrime is so lucrative that people with doctorates in mathematics from Eastern European universities are recruited and go to work every day at a job where their sole purpose is to steal from the U.S. financial system.

•Try to name five Fortune 500 companies that have not been hacked in the last five years. Michaels, hacked. Home Depot, hacked. JPMorgan Chase and Co., hacked. Target — you know about that one.

•To paraphrase former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke, "there are only two types of companies left in the United States: those that have been hacked and those that don't know they've been hacked."

So, is there anything we can do to mitigate the costs (financially, operationally, personally and emotionally) of cybercrime and identity theft? Here are four practices that can make a difference in the fight against cybercrime.

1. Monitor the right databases. To catch an identity thief, it's not enough to monitor your credit report. You also need to monitor databases such as those within the DMV and utilities. Why do you need to monitor non-credit databases? For starters, 70 percent of illegal usage of an ID is non-credit. For example, using non-credit databases is how you could catch an illegal immigrant working under your name, which doesn't seem too bad until the IRS decides to audit you for underreporting your wages.

2. Employ encryption technologies. Technologies on the market today can encrypt your keyboard and Internet activities. Use them on work and home computing devices.

3. Buy cybersecurity insurance. You wouldn't own a business without liability insurance or a car without automobile insurance. It today's complicated business world, add cybersecurity to your list of coverage needs. Cybersecurity insurance can help offset the cleanup cost when you are hacked. Consumers can also insure against their identity theft risk. Be sure to read the fine print when purchasing this coverage — don't fall for faux insurance products that have a "million-dollar guarantee," for example.

4. Know where to go when you become a victim. According to the Federal Trade Commission, you can spend anywhere from 60 to 600 hours putting the pieces back together after a cyber hack. But, there is help! If you invest in an identity theft "recovery advocate," you'll have someone who can do the repair work for you.

The first step is to admit that we all have a cybersecurity problem. We need to stop pointing fingers at the Targets of the world and focus on our own businesses and ourselves. Then we can really start to innovate ways to protect us all.

Bryan Ansley is CEO of Secure Identity Systems, a company that specializes in identifying and combating fraud. Learn more at www.secureidentitysystems.com.