The Threat of Fraud in the Organization Assignment

The Threat of Fraud in the Organization - Assignment Example Crooks have been getting ever smarter and now target executives of small to medium enterprises where for instance fictitious orders for goods or credit lines are initiated and the goods are shipped to a third party. This causes considerable losses to companies and executives. Identity theft can be managed by ensuring stronger internal control and monitoring systems such as using the RCSA, encrypting sensitive data, and obtaining insurance for the executives. A workshop organized to sensitize executives on fraud would include a participatory and self-assessment session to monitor uptake of information by attendants. Literature 1. The answer to question 1 (a and b); How would you protect corporate executives of fraudulent acts against them? Identity theft refers to the act of stealing or gaining another person’s identifying and personal information such as a social security number or credit card numbers by unauthorized means and using or having the intention to use the informati on fraudulently (van der Meulen, 2011). The first step in protecting executives would be to get insurance in the director and officer insurance form to cover against loss of wealth and associated assets. An executives' signature can, for example, be used to fraudulently get a binding agreement with the company, which would be detrimental to the company such as using the executive’s identity to access credit lines, which are not approved. The company would need to ensure it and its and executives are under the 'Merchant Risk Council' which is a group of over 7 800 merchants, financial institutions, law enforcement agencies and vendors who work together to enhance cyber frauds, for example, financial institutions would have to call the company before processing a credit card application. Of course, improving cybersecurity at the business would be a viable step. Cybercrime occurs when three principal factors are present; opportunity, rationalization, and pressure as the fraud tr iangle shows. Financial pressure Opportunity Rationalization                                                                                                         Financial The pressures to steal ID's are primarily financial or hobby and the fraudsters never share their problems or intentions to solve them, especially through fraud. Rationalization is the act of someone justifying their fraudulent behavior and reconciling themselves with it so that they commit it without feelings of guilt. Opportunity refers to the capability to steal identities or commit fraud and crooks do their best to cover their tracks. Opportunity is the result of weak control systems in the company and is the one area where most business entities are most vulnerable since while they take steps to minimize fraud, crooks devise ever sophisticated methods to go around the security systems (Singleton & Singleton, 2010). A lot of focus would b e directed to minimizing the opportunity for ID theft by having firewalls and current anti-spyware in addition to installing anti-malware and ant viruses in the computer systems and networks at the company.