Posts Tagged ‘economy’

A new survey from Nationwide indicates that consumers impacted today from identity theft may not have enough money in reserve to get through the recovery process.

The survey, conducted with 400 adults in December of 2008, looked both to identity theft victims and to unaffected consumers in equal proportion. According to the survey, 10% of identity theft victims polled missed payments due to the crime. 80% say that they suffered serious repercussions as a result of identity theft, including lower credit scores, utilities shut off, bankruptcy, vehicle repossession, home foreclosure or jail time.

A previous survey talked about here indicates the average consumer cost per fraud incident was $496, but this does not include the time needed to recover from the fraud, which is likely increasing the odds of not being able to financially cope with the burden.

“If the identity theft involves your credit cards you can often resolve the problems quickly. However, if the fraud involves a debit card, a loan or your health insurance, the impact can be costly and time consuming. With so many Americans losing their savings and investments, people have less money to fall back on during the time it takes to stop the bleeding.” – Kirk Herath, Chief Privacy Officer for Nationwide Insurance

The survey found that most identity theft victims surveyed tend to be Caucasian, female, ages 35-54, college-educated, married, and employed full time. Those separated or divorced, and in high income households, are more likely to be affected.

Previous Nationwide surveys found that victims spend an average of 81 hours recovering from identity theft, with some going much longer. Other surveys have found similar average resolution times

Hat tip to George ; Image: clipart

This week McAfee released the 2009 Threat Predictionsreport and VARBusiness released its interpretation of the 10 Security Predictions for 2009.Both reports indicate that cyber criminals are exploiting the current economic situation to create new scams of various sources.

McAfee senior vice president Jeff Green notes:

“Computer users face a dangerous one-two punch today. The current economic crisis is delivering a blow to our financial well-being, while malware authors are taking advantage of our distraction to deliver a roundhouse strike.”

McAfee Threat Predictions for 2009:

1. Threats Hide in the Cloud - Threats that take advantage of Web 2.0 will replace traditional delivery methods
2. Personalized Threats Speak Your Language – Using single-use binary files that create a sea of threats; other threats include difersifying malware into non-English languages.
3. Malware Targets Consumer Devices - USB sticks and flash-memory devices
4. The Rogue Web and Malvertising – using mainstream practices to “sell” software that is misleading or fraudulent.
5. McColo: The Effects of a Takedown – Spam went down 60% after this host was taken down, so we may see more of a collaborative effort to take down these cyber criminals.

Download the report here [PDF].

VARBusiness 10 Security Predictions For 2009:

1. Malware Grows Up - Web 2.0 apps being targeted, with malware harder to track. Malicious code will be written with more variants.
2. Bad Economy Spurs More Scams – More legitimate-looking phishing attacks targeted with a banking angle
3. Let’s Socialize – Social networking sites will be impersonated or contacts spoofed
4. This Time It’s Premeditated - working harder at large-scale attacks
5. Unified Security Is the Way to Go - Efficiency and affordability will be the name of the game in 2009.
6. Rise Of The Underworld – The cyber crime underworld will continue to evolve and become more organized
7. You Left That Door Open – Disgruntled workers being laid off during the economic crunch may try to take data
8. Data Breach Bonanzas – Credit-card companies are imposing more stringent regulations on businesses as credit card data becomes more highly targeted by criminals
9. Got Game?- Cyber crime in online gaming
10. Weather Forecast: Cloud Computing – Trends to outsource security tasks

Continue reading the report here.

In follow-up to our previous post about the economic impact to IT budgets for 2009, and the secondary budget about the budget impacting the education sector, a new study by the Computing Technology Industry Association indicates that IT spending in the UK will increase next year for small and medium sized businesses.

As with the Global State of Information Security report highlighted here, which shows that 44% of those surveyed would be increasing information security spending, this new study indicates that 51% of small and medium-sized businesses plan to increase their tech spending by 10% or more in the next 12 months. This growth in spending is lower than in the previous year, but the proportion of those decreasing or keeping flat their budgets is still low.

“In the past, tech spending might have been one of the first line items slashed in a tough economy. Today, SMBs are savvier because they rely on technology for an increasing amount of their core business operations. It’s encouraging to see that the majority of SMBs plan to maintain, if not increase, current tech spending during this time of economic uncertainty.” – Todd Thibodeaux, president and chief executive officer, CompTIA

Overall, SMBs continue to remain optimistic about business growth, despite the current economic instability in the UK and around the world.

Another very interesting article on CSO Online is encouraging colleges and universities to step up and include more IT security education for students planning on going into IT. And in terms of “stepping up”, an article in the Vancouver Sun recently also talked about social media and how companies should take stock of what’s being used and how to embrace it, rather than ignore or ban it (which, while also not effective, poses a security risk).

Via VNUNet

According to a new survey, schools all across the US are feeling the effects of the downturn in the economy. The study, released by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), is based on a survey of school superintendents from October of 2008. It finds that schools across the nation are cutting costs in response to shrinking budgets, which could “threaten gains in student achievement and progress in narrowing the achievement gap.”

The study is very in depth, looking to many areas of budgets and cost-custting, from thermostats to staff levels. Currently, 67% of those superintendents polled describe their districts as “inadequately funded.”

Highlights from the study:

• 36% of superintendents have increased class sizes
• 35% have reduced instructional material
• 30% are considering lay offs, while 48% have already reduced staff-level hiring
• 95% say unemployment has impacted the families of students in their districts
• 87% say the economy affects the schools’ capacity to maintain focus on student learning (similarly, most indicate the same inability to focus on instructional improvements, learning needs of all students, and meeting performance assessments)

There is no doubt that education is vital to a healthy economy, so a struggling education system could, according to AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech, “multiply the negative impact and prolong the economic downturn.”

Although the survey did not ask about IT budgets in any way, I would imagine that IT has been as impacted by tighter budgets in the education sector. It will put extra pressure on IT departments to find solutions that help automate tasks and increase efficiencies. Also, given that data breaches in the education market account for a significant portion of all breaches in 2008, reductions in security spending could increase the risk of data breach (which is a costly issue). Download the study here. [PDF]

Another extremely interesting article on the topic of education looks to Obama’s campaign and what lessons the education sector can learn from his embrace of technology during his campaign. Obama’s campaign made effective use of social media – Facebook, Twitter, blogging – to get in touch with young voters. A strategy that had more young voters out to the polls than any time in the last 34 years, and which teachers can take inspiration from in terms of getting their students involved. Continue reading about this here.

Learn more about Absolute Software’s initiatives in Education here.

Via eschoolnews

Absolute Software, as computer recovery specialist, can often spot trends in computer thefts from the number of reported threats to its Theft Recover Team. In a press release last week, Absolute notes that the number of computer thefts has increased during (or perhaps the result of) the recent economic downturn.

“We are seeing a rapid increase in the number of computer thefts reported to our Theft Recovery Team.” – John Livingston, Chairman and CEO of Absolute.

Although some of the growth in the figures can be attributed to more Absolute customers, the team believes some of this is due to the current economic situation. With theft on the rise, there is undoubtedly going to be an increase in identity theft and data breaches.

Of course, with more laptop losses being reported to Absolute, there are more great success stories to share about Absolute’s recovery efforts. As part of the press release, several mini case studies of recent stolen computers were featured.

Absolute Software helps protect thousands of computers for consumers and businesses alike. Computrace helps businesses track computers, manage software, and recover lost computers. It adds a much needed layer of data protection that should be considered in these risky times.

*For complete details on $1000 Service Guarantee, see http://www.absolute.com/Service_Agreement.pdf