Fergie's Tech Blog

Bankers Gone Bad: Financial Crisis Making The Threat Worse

Kelly Jackson Higgins writes on Dark Reading:

A former Wachovia Bank executive who had handled insider fraud incidents says banks are in denial about just how massive the insider threat problem is within their institutions. Meanwhile, the economic crisis appears to be exacerbating the risk, with 70 percent of financial institutions saying they have experienced a case of data theft by one of their employees in the past 12 months, according to new survey data.

Shirley Inscoe, who spent 21 years at Wachovia handling insider fraud investigations and fraud prevention, says banks don't want to talk about the insider fraud, and many aren't aware that it's an "epic problem."

"There needs to be more training around this issue," says Inscoe, who co-authored a book about bank insider fraud called Insidious -- How Trusted Employees Steal Millions and Why It's So Hard for Banks to Stop Them, which publishes later this month. "We are seeing a huge increase in this country of organized crime rings threatening individuals who work in financial institutions and making them [commit fraud on their behalf]," she says.

posted by Fergie @ 10/05/2009 10:03:00 PM