Heroes in Business - Experian Identity Report Special Segment with

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Experian Identity Report Special Segment with Radio host David Cogan interviewing Rod Griffin, Senior Director, Consumer Education and Advocacy, Experian, Kathleen Peters Chief Innovation Officer at Experian Decision Analytics, and Michael Brummer, Head of Experian Global Data Breach Resolution. visit 

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. Again, so excited. We've got an incredible segment today on the Experian Identity Report. That's right. We're going to be speaking with the Senior Director of Public Education for Experian, Rod Griffin. Rod leads Experian's national consumer education programs and works with consumer advocates and financial educators to help consumers really increase their ability

to understand and manage their personal finances and also protect themselves from fraud and identity theft. So, Rod, welcome to the program. Really, I think our audience will find this discussion very extremely helpful. Why? Because it helps them protect and manage their own identity. And that's really what I want to get into with us today to discuss, because we're all worried these days about identity theft. And we really don't know though a whole lot about it. And that's why we've got you on the show today. And with your wealth of experience and expertise, talk to us about really what exactly is identity theft?

David, thanks for having me. And identity theft, unfortunately, is something we've probably already all experienced. It's just simply the access and unauthorized access to your identifying information. Someone trying to steal your identity to use it for nefarious purposes, for things that would affect you potentially financially, as well as in other ways that could use your identity, put you in positions. I actually have heard and experienced a situation where a person was arrested because they used a false identity and the person who stole their identity committed a crime. So it's simply the act of stealing your identifying information. Sadly, we've probably already all been a victim in some way. What does it mean to like the average person? Talk to us about that kind of that impact to the average person. For the average person, it means that your identity, your name, your address, social security number, date of birth have been accessed through a

data breach, through theft of a computer any number of ways that it can happen stealing information from your trash in many cases and often the first evidence we see of identity theft is credit fraud someone uses your information to apply for a new account that can affect your credit report that can affect your credit report, that can affect your credit scores, and therefore can hurt your ability to qualify for financial tools and resources. And that's often the first thing that we see for an average consumer. And you mentioned some things, but I think this is important, is what else could a criminal do if they take somebody's identity? Like, what are the various ways that they could do with that information? Yeah. And the federal trade commission puts out a fraud Sentinel report every year. And amazingly, the most complained about result of identity theft is government documents fraud.

So they use your stolen identity to apply for social security benefits, for other kinds of government benefits. I was actually a victim of identity theft and tax fraud. They had a breach of tax records and I received a tax refund check and was excited for about half a second and realized I hadn't filed my taxes yet. So they use it for lots of things, credit card fraud, account takeover, opening new credit accounts. So there's a wide range of financial frauds primarily, but they may also create false identities that they can then use to apply for things like driver's licenses or other kinds of licenses or provide to the police when they've been arrested and have your identity associated with someone who has committed a felony in one instance, as I mentioned. You know, this again, very serious stuff. And again, we have with us and again, so honored to have you here today to Rod Griffin.

He is the senior director of public education for Experian. You can go to Experian.com. That's E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N.com because you're listening and watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. So make sure you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Also, you can catch past episodes at Alliancer.com, including many from the Experian Identity Report by going to eliancer.com. Because what we're doing is the Experian Identity Report. And, Rob, this is just such valuable information in that. So I should say, well, maybe if this happens, I think I should be saying maybe when it happens, because it just seems to be so much out there of it happening. What's the first thing someone

should do? I mean, it seemed like there would be a big panic taking place. What does someone do? Yeah. And don't panic. That's the first thing to not do. But one, request your credit report. You can go to experian.com slash fraud and get a free report and add what we call an initial security alert to your credit report. That alert says I might be a victim of identity theft before granting credit by name. Please verify my identity or call me.

Experian actually shares that alert with our competitors. So it will go on all of your credit reports, get a report, see if anything's happening so that's step one step to notify your lenders if you are concerned that you've been a victim if you find evidence of fraud go back to that experience on slash fraud website file a police report your local police department will know exactly what to do. Once you've done that, you can add an extended fraud victim alert. It says that I am a victim before granting credit money. Call me. You have two telephone numbers. And again, we'll share that with the other bureaus that last for seven years. So you have some protection there from credit fraud. And then

it's a matter of monitoring your credit history. Make sure you know what's there. Make sure that you know what's going on. Make sure that you're watching for any changes so that you can act quickly. And Experian can help you with that. And are there any additional things or products that Experian has that really can help, you know, prevent that identity theft that's taking place? And again, it's almost like as popular, unfortunately, as popular as you said that it is it's bound to happen to someone eventually over time yeah well the reality is that all of our identities have likely been compromised you hear about data breaches as i mentioned you hear about

thefts of computers and one of the most popular things to do is go through your trash and steal identifying information from documents you've had. So shred everything. But at Experian, because you've been potentially compromised, there are tools we can provide. One is a monitoring service. So we have a free monitoring service. You can find it at Experian.com or you can download our free app and enroll. And we will provide notice of any changes that hit your credit report so that you can act immediately on making sure that things are protected that you can take steps to recover and if there's any information in your report in terms of accounts that have been affected we can connect you with representatives who can assist so monitor that credit history know what's there use tools like experience monitoring service again

at experian.com or on your mobile app to make sure that you are alerted immediately to any changes so that you can act right away well that's great and you know i think after this interview i'm going to have to run and sign up for those perfect you should do that it's the one perk i tell you the one perk i get at experian is a a membership to our monitoring service. Yeah, I mean, excellent. And do you see it, you know, so people get this notification and they can immediately start taking action on their end? Yes. And so if something new comes into your credit report,

you'll be able to get a copy of that report, make sure that it's something you're aware of. You know, it might be something you've applied for credit, things like that. Could be somebody who's used your identity to apply for a new account. Could be a charge that's made and something changes in your history. So we'll make sure that you can then respond immediately. And that's really the key. It's about recovering as rapidly as possible, stopping that crime as soon as we can. Excellent. Well, Rod, we thank you for your time again. Rod Griffin,

Senior Director of Public Education for Experian. Make sure that you go to Experian.com. That's E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance Hero Show. So make sure again that you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-c-e-s.com and continue to stay tuned for the experience identity report thank you so much again rod thank you dennis so Thank you. us. We're our heroes in business aligned. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. And I'm so excited about today. We've got a great day today, a lot of activity going on. And with that, it's the Experian Identity Report on the Eliance's Hero Show. That's right. We are bringing you these special reports with the world's leading experts about game-changing impact of the identity

and the need to use reliable data to make confident decisions that safely accelerate customer engagement. And this week, we're joined by Kathleen Peters. She is the Chief Innovation Officer for Experian's analytics business in North America. Now, Experian recently launched its annual future of fraud forecast. This is a report that shares five emerging fraud predictions that businesses and consumers should be aware of. And Kathleen, we're really looking forward to learning about what those five fraud predictions from this year's report and really how Experian is innovating to create new tools that help businesses and consumers stay safe, because that is really so important. So really, Kathleen, what is the future of fraud forecast and why does Experian release this report every year? It's great to be with you, David, and thanks for asking about the report.

We're actually in our third year of that we can share emerging fraud schemes and trends so that we can let folks know, make them more aware of the types of frauds that may be impacting their businesses or impacting consumers. And what we found is that the report is very useful to remind people that fraud is out there. It is all around us. And in fact, fraudsters are organized, they're sophisticated, and they're actually really innovative. So our goal in making this information available is to really help businesses and consumers be prepared so that they can protect themselves from these increasingly and emergingly prevalent types of different fraud scams. Amazing. And what are some of the fraud predictions that Experian highlights in this year's report?

In this year's report, we have a variety of situations ranging from employment scams, threats to online retailers, employment scams, threats to online retailers, and even the types of fraud that are becoming associated with the peer-to-peer direct payments that we're all making using apps on our phones. And one underlying factor, David, that really connects all of these five predictions this year is that fraudsters are using everyday channels that both businesses and we as consumers are using all the time. Things like text messages or job search boards, social media, the digital payment apps that I mentioned. These are all places and applications where we as consumers have gotten very comfortable. We feel comfortable in using these types of apps and sites, and we might be less suspecting of the fraud that is occurring there. So I'll give you one example from this

year's predictions. One of the predictions that I find very interesting and relevant is the fake text messages from the boss. So a lot has changed since 2020, including the prevalence of remote work. You can see that I'm working from home today myself. Employees are communicating with their colleagues and with their managers in different ways, including text messages. So this new type of scam really capitalizes on these new ways of communicating and frankly can put both employees and employers at risk. Amazing. Well, and again, you're watching and listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure that you go to alliances.com, that's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com to also watch and view past episodes of the Experian Report because we have with us Kathleen

Peters. She is the Chief Innovation Officer for Experian's Decision Analytics business in North America. Make sure that you go to Experian.com. That's E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N. So Kathleen, what can businesses though and consumers do to keep themselves safe from the fraudsters this year and well beyond? So for businesses, it's important to remember that fraud is complex. And our predictions show that businesses might be needing to be extra vigilant, especially in 2023. So my best advice for businesses is to review your current fraud practices and the fraud mitigation tools that you have in place. Make some plans to review that process and ways to mitigate the types of

attacks that we're highlighting in this year's fraud forecast. Another important aspect for businesses is to educate your employees because they really are your first line of defense and they might also be your first line of vulnerability potentially. So talk to your employees, make sure they're aware that these scams are out there as well. I also suggest working with a trusted partner, a vendor who can consult, take a look at risks or gaps that you might have in your process and help recommend some solutions that not only will improve the situation today, but put you in a better place for the future as well. Great. Yeah. Great tip. Great tip. So how is Experian using innovation though to combat this fraud? So in talking about this type of fraud, we have a number of different ways and

things that we're doing. And especially in my role at Experian, this is an area that I'm very passionate about. And we innovate in creating new products to help consumers protect themselves, as well as to help businesses fight fraud. We innovate not only in the new products that we create, but in the ways that we are reaching out to consumers. I do want to mention for consumers that one way and one way to think about protecting yourself and being more aware, consumers should regularly check their credit report. I recommend considering that. And in fact, it was recently announced that all three credit bureaus through the rest of 2023. So for the rest of this entire year, you can get free

weekly credit reports from all three bureaus by going to annualcreditreport.com. It's something that any consumer can do. All one word, annualcreditreport.com every week, just checking to see if there might be some unexpected, undetected identity theft that's causing fraudulent claims. And then from an overall innovation perspective, some things that within my organization and my team that we're building, one of the ways that we've done this is with a product we announced last year, but continue to be very excited about, and that's called Experian Link. And I know we've talked about Experian Link on alliances as well. Experian Link is enabling online merchants and retailers to link a customer's identity information with the credit card that they might be presenting for payment in real time,

even when you're online. And so by using Experian Link, retailers can link names, addresses, other types of identifying information to that credit card so they can have better confidence in the legitimacy of that transaction. And that's just one of the ways that we are innovating and making use of data to enable better identity verification and stop fraud. Well, excellent. This is very valuable information. And again, this has been

the Experian Identity Report with Kathleen Peters, Chief Innovation Officer for Experian Decision Analytics Business in North America. Make sure that you go to Experian Decision Analytics Business in North America. Make sure that you go to Experian.com. That's E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N.com.

This has been David Kogan with the Alliances Hero Show. Thank you again so much, Kathleen. Thank you. Up in the sky. Look, it's captivating. It's energizing. It's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups. We're our heroes in business aligned. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Alliances. Yes, yes, yes. It's the Experian Identity Report on Alliances. And we are bringing with you these special reports with the world's

leading experts about the game-changing impact of identity and the need to use reliable data to make confident decisions that will safely accelerate customer engagement. This week, we're joined again by Michael Bremer, who leads the Global Data Breach Resolution Group at Experian. That's right, he serves as Vice President of Consumer Protection. And Michael, we are looking forward to learning more about the different scams to watch out for and how consumers can manage their original footprint and protect themselves from these cyber criminals. You can reach experian by going to experian.com forward slash data breach all right so michael let's jump right in scam scam scams what were the some of the biggest consumer scams of of 2022 that you've seen well first of all david thank you so much for

having me according to the ftc the number one scam this year continues to be identity theft. steal other people's personal identity information or health information and use it either to gain access, to steal money, to get healthcare services. Second, imposter scams. And with about $3.5 trillion of stimulus funds that were given during the pandemic, the imposter scams amounted to about $100 billion, according to the Secret Service. Next, debt collection scams, where an unscrupulous debt collector buys debt that you think you've already paid and then hounds you for additional payments. Business email compromise, which is important to especially your listeners who are entrepreneurs. This is where somebody sends you an email, maybe asking for money or access, and especially prevalent now with the work from home businesses. And finally,

around the holidays, everybody's looking for extra cash, prizes, lotteries, and sweepstakes. The old adage is, if it appears to be too good to be true, it actually is. Wow. So how can we as consumers protect ourselves from cyber criminals? My list of top four things are pretty simple and easy to do. You just have to follow them. First, don't click on any links. No matter if they're from even someone that you know, someone could have compromised their email

or their phone account. Second, block all non-contact or people you don't have in your address book callers. Don't accept those. If somebody needs to get a hold of you, they'll try multiple times. They'll text you or another means. Update your home cybersecurity profile. Make sure you have a secure Wi-Fi password. Make sure you're using encryption and make sure if you have a paid for virtual private network, which you can buy, use that, which will protect you. And then turn on two-factor authentication that allows you to have a second factor to get into your network so somebody can't take it over and then finally I know it's hard around the holidays with connection on social media but try to stay off social media limit your exposure and for sure don't just disclose any of your personal identity information on your network excellent excellent

i mean this is great great information so uh what should consumers do though i should say not if but perhaps when they receive a data breach notification letter from a business i mean i continue to see them become so popular. I've received many of them. Yeah. The average consumer, according to our records, would receive between five and six notifications of a data breach from all sources in 2022, which is a lot. And that letter is going to tell you three important things. What happened, why it happened, and how do you protect yourself? happened, why it happened, and how do you protect yourself. So first and foremost, take it seriously. Make sure that you read it carefully. If you have any questions, there'll be an 800 number for you to call and ask. And finally, and most importantly, if identity theft protection or other protection methods are offered, take advantage of them, enroll in the product,

and then you have access to other resources that can help you resolve your issue. Excellent, excellent. Well, again, we have with us Michael Bremer, Vice President of Consumer Protection, Global Data Breach Resolution Group at Experian. You can reach him, go to experian.com forward slash data breach. That's experian.com forward slash data breach. Because you're watching and listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. You can certainly listen and we recommend it going to other episodes by Experian too at alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com and click on the radio link there.

ces.com and click on the radio link there. So how does, Michael, identity protection products that Experian offers consumers work? Our product is called Identity Works, and the basis of all of the Identity Works offerings are that you're going to get 24 by 7 real-time monitoring of your credit file. You'll get access to a new updated credit real-time monitoring of your credit file. You'll get access to a new updated credit report, so you choose to use it every single day. So you might have something happen. You take some actions. You can immediately check, and in fact, if you've done that update, it will also monitor for any activity of your personal identity information on the dark web. for any activity of your personal identity information on the dark web.

If someone has stolen it and wants to resell on the dark web, you're going to get an alert about it. We also have a $1 million identity theft protection insurance policy, which will cover the cost if you suffer identity theft and have to spend money with assistance or even up to $10,000 worth of lost funds in a wire transfer. And then finally, the most important thing, David, that we have is access to a dedicated fraud resolution agent. They'll help you anytime you call in with any question you have. And this access is good for as long as you need it. Even if you only have one year of identity theft protection that's offered,

you can call two, three, four years later and still have free access. That's great. So when somebody goes to Experian.com forward slash data breach, what information are they seeing there? We have resources for businesses, how to protect themselves and prepare for a data breach. The same thing for consumers it will have any of our updated data breach protection information as well as consumer tips and then all of our predictions for 2023 will also be on the site for any businesses there so it's

the one-stop shop if you need anything about identity theft or data breach. That's fantastic. I mean, we can't thank you enough for being here today. I mean, Michael, you help consumers protect themselves from cyber criminals. That's the hero. This has been the Experian Identity Report with Michael Bremer,

Vice President of Consumer Protection at Experian on the Alliance's Hero Show. So be sure to go to Experian.com forward slash data breach. That's Experian.com forward slash data breach. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Thank you very much. Thanks, David. Up in the sky. Look, it's captivating. It's energizing. It's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups.

We're our heroes in business aligned. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. founder of Eliance's. I gotta tell you, I am super excited because we have our weekly feature called the Experian Identity Report. I mean, let's face it, managing one's personal identity is complicated on its own. At the business enterprise level, managing customer identities in a strategic and secure way and at a scale across countless interactions is very complicated and it's only going to get more complex in the future from what I understand. That's why we are bringing you these special reports that will include interviews with the world's leading experts about the game-changing impact of identity and the need to use reliable data

to make confident decisions that safely accelerate customer engagement. So please welcome to the show, Michael Bremer. He leads the Global Data Breach Resolution for Experian and serves as the Vice President of Consumer Protection. So at the end, make sure that you go to experian.com forward slash data breach so michael welcome to the show and thank you for being here today thank you david and happy

holidays yes you too so what were the biggest cyber security threats to companies this year i imagine there were so many but maybe you could share with us the biggest ones. Sure. I have my top five list. And some of these you've read about as a consumer or heard about from a business perspective. Top of the list is malware or ransomware. Second, zero-day attacks. And zero-day attacks just means it's a cyber threat that the criminals are exercising for the first time. Remote code extension. So the hackers are using code that can be controlled remotely once they get inside your systems. Social engineering, which is always tough around the holidays with online e-commerce as well as scams. And then finally, the old phishing or smishing. This is a

text or an email that's sent to you, so you click on the link. Well, why are organizations still unable to stop a data breach? Well, we've said for a while that the hackers continue to evade detection. And for the first time, we've gone over 200 days to the time of detection and then an organization will find a data breach. And beyond that, it takes 75 days to find out that they actually can resolve the issue. And this is the longest it's been. So the hackers are just keep out running the people trying to protect their businesses, particularly the entrepreneurs. Amazing. Now, I think it's important to know is how does Experian help organizations that have suffered a data breach? I mean, the numbers must just go through the roof as far as the,

you know, how many have suffered a data breach. So share that, please. Sure. Well, we've been doing it since 2003, and we've serviced over 60,000 data breaches. And in 2022, we'll have serviced almost 5,000. What we do is we provide the legally required notification to consumers if an organization has had a data breach. We'll provide 800 number for people to call in for frequently asked questions or enroll if they need assistance and don't want to do that online. And then finally, we actually provide our Identity Works identity theft protection product. Well, that's great. I mean, and I want to, I mean, this is important. I mean, this is critical information. It affects everybody. I mean, that's the thing.

It doesn't discriminate. It's out there. So again, welcome to the show, Michael Bremer. That's who we have with us today. Vice President of Consumer Protection and Global Data Breach Resolution Group at Experian. You know he's busy. Experian.com forward slash data breach

is where you can go ahead and make sure you go to that link because why you're watching and listening to me David Cogan host of the alliances hero show to see past episodes you can go ahead and go to alliances.com and click on the radio portion button and you'll also find many other incredible interviews with Experian. So again, appreciate you being here today. What are the most important steps though now that companies could take to shore up their cybersecurity? I have really three things that every company,

whether you're a single family business, whether you're a large multinational, these steps apply to you. First, it's job-specific security and privacy training because it's not just the security guys that need to protect you, but you need to protect yourself and be educated on what are the threats. Second, it's zero trust and verify, meaning that you're not trusting anyone or any device to come into your network unless you have actually authorized it and then verified every time it comes in. And this applies again to small businesses all the way up to large multinationals.

And finally, I like a term cyber resilience, and we're using this particularly in our 2023 predictions because every company is going to have some type of security event. But it's how quickly you can recover and how much resilience you have. If you get attacked or have a security event, you can recover and continue servicing your customers. I mean, that's great. And I appreciate you again, you sharing that. So what are some of the predictions in the Experian data breach industry forecast for next year? I had talked earlier, David, on the podcast about how we think the hackers are staying ahead. But I like a couple other ones that we're talking about. The first one is the cyber attacks are going to rain down from space. Depending on which numbers you

believe, there's between four and 7,000 satellites that are up in space, and half of them are either out of service, decommissioned, or inactive. And two years ago at a conference in Las Vegas called DEFCON there was a hacker with $300 worth of TV equipment that actually was able to intercept a fortune 100 company's internet traffic from a satellite using that so I'm not saying that the international space station is going to come crashing down, but we think that satellites and their information could be intercepted or the orbits changed. The other big prediction is around the metaverse. In two years, we predict that every human is going to spend about an hour in the metaverse playing around. You have to provide personalized ID, any information,

payment information, as well as device ID to just get into the metaverse, but it's the worst combination possible because you're there having fun, you've given up information, and it's very unregulated. Finally, the other one that I highlight is actually already sort of taking place, and this is the second battlefield in that cyberspace. So wars that are conventionally fought on the ground that use updated technology are going to be fought at the same time in cyberspace, launching denial of service attacks, taking down infrastructure, and creating havoc without ever having boots

touch the ground. Absolutely amazing. Well, Michael, you help companies identify the steps to shore up their cybersecurity. That's a hero. This has been the Experian Identity Report with Michael Bremmer, Vice President of Consumer Protection at Experian on the Alliance's Hero Show.

Make sure that you go to Experian.com forward slash data breach to learn more. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Show, and make sure you check out alliances.com.