Crime Chronics

We have all seen on the news the horror stories of identity theft which can lead to crimes against our personal circumstances ranging from credit card fraud through to someone basically pretending to be their victim in all walks of life. Banks are getting wiser to these crimes all the time, but at the same rate the criminals are also becoming more efficient and so the battle to protect our information continues.

Crimes based on identity theft are not just limited to personal finances either. Businesses can also suffer from issues which quite often can be traced back to an employee or supplier. In order to protect your company from being targeted in this way it is important to have proper security measures in place. This means using the office shredder to destroy sensitive or pertinent documents which could be put to damaging use if they fell into unscrupulous hands.

The shredder is your first line of defence, but will not help you when the documents in question need to be preserved for future reference. In this case it is down to the secure storage of such data and limiting access to a trusted few. It may feel unpleasant to essentially mistrust the majority of your work force but you may regret it later if you don’t take a hard view now. Keep track of everything properly and you are less likely to leave your company open to attack.

Many criminals operate on an opportunistic level and identity theft is no different: if you leave your purse open on a table in a public place your cards are more vulnerable than if your bag is safely in your hands. Similarly, to a practised eye, your business can be viewed in the same way so don’t make it easy for them and stay safe from identity crimes.

Police found an “amateurish” but potentially powerful bomb that apparently began to detonate but did not explode in a smoking sport utility vehicle in Times Square, authorities said Sunday, AP reported.

Thousands of tourists were cleared from the streets for 10 hours after a T-shirt vendor alerted police to the suspicious vehicle, which contained three propane tanks, fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

“We avoided what we could have been a very deadly event,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “It certainly could have exploded and had a pretty big fire and a decent amount of explosive impact.”