How To

How to Stop a Thief by Thinking Like a Thief

Connie Veates, assistant VP of corporate security and business continuity at BellSouth, developed a comprehensive antifraud program. The cornerstone of that program is the team's ability to think like a thief.

By CSO Contributor

Page 2

This is why, when fraud's discovered, you often hear victims saying, "He's the last person I'd have

suspected." That's how he got away with it!

Trust your instincts

While you must stifle the natural tendency to generalize about who commits fraud, you should

definitely trust your gut when it comes to sensing fraud might be taking place. Veates encourages all

employees to report it when they have that "something's just not right" vibe. And her subject matter

experts have developed keen senses of smell for something fishy, too.

Hire young turks

Veates believes one of the best sources for thinking like a thief is our nation's youth. Young people

just out of college, often with a better working knowledge of technology than corporate managers, are

both skilled enough and energetic enough to want to suss out fraud techniques. "They have a specific

skill set, these just-out-of-college geeky guys who sit and play games and are intrigued with the

challenge," Veates says. "It's a like a video game to them. A safe way to have fun breaking the rules. We

let them loose and say, 'How would you steal from this system?'"

If you want to think like a thief, act like a thief

The best way to understand how thieves think is to become one yourself, Veates says. Game your

systems. Learn how to break into them, who's vulnerable to social engineering, where the weak spots in

the supply chain can be found. "We've developed a good reputation for this; we've done it for three

years now. Sometimes the business units know we're doing it, sometimes not. Sometimes, we just

game the systems when we're bored. Just break in and take the intelligence back to the business unit.

They see the fraud technique and say, 'Who thinks like this?' And we tell them, 'We do.'"

$firstKeyword

RESOURCE CENTER
Loading...
VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
Security Directions: A Virtual Conference

Security Directions Available On Demand Sept. 30 - Dec. 30

Join us for a virtual event with candid, expert information on top security challenges and issues - all from the comfort of your desktop.

» Register Now

WEBCAST
Protecting PII: How to Work with IT to Manage Risk

Compuware Understand the critical nature of the test data privacy problem and get tips on how to work with IT to implement a test data privacy program.

» View this Webcast

Featured Sponsors