Data and identity theft, money laundering, and scams are popular on the web nowadays. Hackers around the world pick their targets the very moment you are reading this. Unfortunately, no company has immunity against it. However, with a proper fraud prevention solution, you can protect your business and customers. Simple measures will not only save your money but gain your business a reputation of trust.
Types of Fraud
Fraudsters are getting incredibly creative nowadays. You might witness multiple forms of scams. Yet, originally, they can all be separated into the next categories:
- Identity theft. This is the most popular type of crime that might affect your clients. Thieves can hack your system and steal the data of your customers.
- Credit card fraud leaves not only your customers but the whole business in trouble. Your clients might be robbed providing security codes to fraudsters. You have to make sure that your system of payments is secured.
- Money frauds including stolen cards, skimming, fake cards, ID theft, address change, and phishing schemes. You have to use advanced protection like covery.ai offers to secure the data.
Though there is always a risk of fraud, you can decrease these chances by paying your clients attention to specific signs. Make sure your customers are aware of the following schemes:
- Scammers usually pretend to work on behalf of the company your clients deal with. The bigger the company, the better for them. Striving to gain people’s trust, they can use popular names. Therefore, inform your clients not to discuss their security data with anyone.
- Fraudsters usually say that there is some problem with your clients’ data. They offer to help if they receive access to a personal account. Another popular trick is to notify the victim about the prize. To get the prize, the victim also has to enter the account.
- Fraudsters don’t give a person any time to think and insist on immediate reaction. While it looks suspicious now, when it comes to winning a prize or solving the problem with an account, the innocent victims do not think twice.
- Your clients can receive specific instructions on payment from fraudsters. They can offer to send money using another account, which, as they say, belongs to the company. They can even send a person a check and tell them to deposit it so that the victim can send the money to them. The check will turn out to be fake later.
Preventive Measures
It is extremely important for any company to have a plan of protection against fraud. You can develop it right after you start the business. While some types of frauds provide immediate visible results, others can stay unnoticeable for months. Learn how to increase your protection.
Internal control
There are lots of programs that can protect the assets of your company. You have to learn everything about them and pick the most helpful options in your case. They will help not only to safeguard the assets but also to find the breach. Decide which plan is the best for this particular case. If you have several employees who work with money, you can divide their duties so that they can control each other’s actions.
Teach your employees to work with clients
Employees have to know how to recognize fraudsters. If they are not aware of where to look for trouble, they might miss hacker’s attacks. Many companies share the clients’ database with their employees. Once it is hacked because of the poor security system, everyone will suffer from consequences.
Analysts and safety experts
Use the help of certified public accountants or fraud’ examiners. They will be able to protect your business and check the situation with security. Trust them to improve the safety system in the company. Ensure that you hire professionals with a reliable reputation.
Positive work environment for your employees
Maintaining a positive spirit at work is highly important in terms of fraud prevention. Your employers should feel free to report on anything suspicious they might have noticed. Treat your employees fairly. There must be an open door policy to start the dialogue between management and workers.
Protection of Clients and Customers
Whether the attack was from inside or outside, you have to make sure that there is a strong guard of your clients’ data. The modern market is highly competitive, so if you don’t want to lose your reputation and audience, you need to provide securities. Here are the most popular security measures for you.
Protection of card details
The first thing you have to take care of is the safety of information on payment cards. In case you need more than a number of the card, like for car insurance, you need to provide solid protection to the customer. No matter whether you are working offline or online, some tools might help you protect customers’ data.
There are several steps for verification or confirmation of the payment via phone call. At the same time, you have to choose the method that is less painful for your clients. Nobody wants to waste time going through the 10 steps of the verification process. Check your system every week for security breaches and make sure that the data you’ve gathered is locked and unreachable for others.
Offline security improvement
While it might seem like fraudsters can steal the information only from online businesses, the chances are high that customers can lose money offline. Instead of focusing totally on web security, you have to pay attention to both options. Offline security protocols must be clear and reliable. Your clients have to know that they are protected by you.
Offline fraudsters like to use classic but still working methods. One of them is calling the customer and getting all the information they need to get access to money and identity. Many customers provide personal information without even thinking twice. The information may include a security code. To prevent it, you have to warn your clients about such situations and provide them information about security measures they can take. There must be a rule in your business to never ask for security codes over the phone.
Increase the security of call center
Call centers usually contain data of clients. They collect it meticulously with attention to numerous details. It is not rare that they become the main target of fraud. Some businesses do not pay much attention to the security of data collected by call centers. Moreover, they can share it with other businesses for money or services. The chances that their clients will become victims of fraud are incredibly high. Even if some information is missing, fraudsters can always name themselves representatives of your company and ask clients directly.
This is why it is crucial to ensure that all the information available for the call center is secured. You can double security by using one of the password managers available online if you are worried about the safety of your clients. With the help of such a tool, you can easily generate new passwords whenever you need them. Don’t hesitate to create passwords for every client and assign the unique ID that protects the personality. Apply tests of your clients’ database.
Protect computer system
Though you might have already done it, this action must be repeated as you can’t be safe enough from modern hackers. Unless you constantly check your security for breaches, fraudsters can find a way to overcome the guard. They might get right to all the data of your clients and your company. This is why it is necessary to hire a trustable expert who will improve your security and make sure that you are not hacked.
Your employees must also attend the courses on online and offline security. They have to change passwords for complicated ones. Ask them to do it at least every 90 days. Backup your files every week so that you can quickly restore the data if something happens with it.
Insurance
No matter how confident you are in your security system and how intensely you work on it, there is still a chance to get hacked. Insurance, in this situation, helps you to minimize the losses. It may also help you to return to the life you had before the frauds and hackers attacks. While it doesn’t protect you from their actions, you will not lose everything. It is a highly important thing to do, especially if you have creditors and business partners who will demand their money. Find out the insurance company that covers fraud cases.
Improve Security Daily
The increased security level can raise your popularity among clients and attract new ones. It will lessen the chances of bankruptcy and help you to keep a positive work environment. To reach these results, you have to learn everything about possible problems with security and deal with the sources in advance. If you are too busy to check your security by yourself, use the help of a professional expert who knows everything about safeguarding and protection in any aspect of your business. Teach your employees the basics of business security and make sure you also follow safety protocol.
