Layered protection provides enhanced fraud prevention

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council recently provided recommendations businesses can use to prevent fraud or identity theft, Dark Reading reports. The FFIEC is a proponent of layered protection mechanisms commonly used by mutual fund companies and banks. These may include monitoring customer transaction history and behavior to aid in fraud detection. The news source suggests that a customer transferring funds to a non-affiliated account for the first time may hint of fraud. Also, address changes, altering banking instructions and modifying beneficiaries are three more tell-tale signs to watch out for. Furthermore, using multiple communication channels to confirm important transactions provides another layer of protection. For example, confirming password changes via email may expose fraud attempts. The Federal Trade Commission offers an identity theft provision of its own, called the Red Flags Rule. According to its site, the rule is designed to detect warning signs of identity theft in advance to help businesses become better equipped to spot suspicious patterns. Identity fraud is on the rise all over the world. According to the Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System,the UK's fraud prevention service, there have been 80,000 ID theft victims in the UK so far this year, with the average person losing £1,190, the Mirror reports.