Fraud prevention essential for companies during holiday season

The holiday season is many people's favorite time of the year, and hackers are included in that group. "Identity thieves love this time of year," said Steve Schwartz, president of partner services at Intersections. "There is a lot more data floating around, and they know consumers are focused on other activities and don't have identity protection top of mind." A recent report by Intersections warned that identity theft will be up during the holiday season. More than half of shoppers plan to make online purchases this year, which means consumers should be careful of phishing scams and unknown Wi-Fi networks. However, shoppers are not the only ones at risk. With nearly half of employees planning to shop online at work and more than half of companies allowing it, according to reports by CareerBuilder and Robert Half Technology, businesses are putting their information at risk as well. Meanwhile, a recent survey by B2B International and Kaspersky Lab revealed that many companies lack adequate fraud prevention measures. Half of respondents said their business leaders are not aware of the cyber threats their companies face, and 58 percent said their IT departments don't have the resources to manage these threats.