Because the average investment account boasts a much larger balance than a typical checking or savings account, cybercriminals are particularly interested in hacking them. Financial institutions are largely responsible for ensuring the security of these accounts, but business customers and consumers also should adopt defensive...
When Congress authorized an additional $600 in monthly unemployment benefits as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, & Economic Security Act, out-of-work Americans were not the only ones it helped. Criminals have descended like locusts on state unemployment insurance agencies, using stolen identities to fraudulently...
Unlike some legitimate businesses, organized crime enterprises can be expected to weather the current COVID-19 crisis. In fact, with millions of Americans now working from home, organized crime-related cyber fraud — including phishing schemes and ransomware attacks — has grown exponentially. If you have not...
With COVID-19 still raging in much of the country, the opioid crisis may not be the top public health challenge on most Americans’ minds. However, according to the American Medical Association, the pandemic has led to an increased number of opioid-related deaths in 35 states. It...
Skimming is not the biggest fraud threat for most businesses. The theft of cash receipts represents only 11 percent of asset appropriation schemes, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ ‘2020 Report to the Nations.’ But with a median loss of $47,000, your business...
New technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, increasingly are being applied to the old problem of occupational fraud. But in most circumstances, common accounting tools — ‘variance analysis’ and ‘contribution margin’ — remain effective in uncovering possible evidence of theft. Gaps & Absences After your organization...
Family businesses make up the vast majority of companies in the United States and produce 62 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the Conway Center for Family Business. Generally defined as companies that are majority owned by a single family with two...
Machine learning increasingly is being used to discover fraud schemes. With this type of artificial intelligence (AI), the technology learns or improves in accuracy through experience, rather than through additional programming. If you already use AI in your business, you are probably somewhat familiar with...
The recently released 2020 Association of Certified Fraud Examiner’s (ACFE’s) occupational fraud study, Report to the Nations, reveals that the most common behavioral red flag exhibited by fraud perpetrators is living beyond their means. Also high on the list are financial difficulties and unusually close...
Every two years, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) publishes what has become the definitive guide for preventing and detecting workplace fraud. The recently released Report to the Nations: 2020 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse draws conclusions from more than 2,500 fraud...