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In this Issue:
 A Beautiful Way to Be Robbed! by Barry Thompson, BOL Guru
Have you visited ourRisk Management Section? Featured Security Webinar Information Security: Regulation, Requirements and What's New - June 10 by Susan Orr
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Welcome to the June Issue of Security Spotlight In this edition, Barry Thompson gives "gardening tips" for curtailing "bad apples," we review the latest buzz on Bankers' Threads, and we highlight some current financial crime exploits. You will also learn about some noteworthy attributes of this month's collection of bank robbery suspect photos, the newest contributions to the Banker Tools section, and what we're saying on our Blogs. Washed Bills A current discussion in one of the security forums on Bankers' Threads deals with the proliferation of counterfeits that consist of higher denomination images printed over bleached small bills. Most bankers are quite familiar with this fraud, and we've been writing about it since 2002. (See "Wrong President.") We are thinking the majority of the losses from these bogus bills will fall on merchants. Have you alerted your commercial customers to this threat and urged them to train their own employees to spot the fakes?
Full details of the security features in our currency are available for download through the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. Two fun quizzes are available from BankersOnline to help reinforce what should be seen on the various denominations. Try them -- and make them available to your commercial customers, too. Back of the Bill and Know Your Money Quiz  SAR Research Guide UpdatedIf you've been looking for guidance on filing a SAR involving identity theft, or information about fraud involving "cash back" mortgages or certificates of deposit, make BOL's SAR Research Guide your first stop. We've just updated the Guide with excerpts from Issue 15 of FinCEN's SAR Activity Review - Trends, Tips and Issues, released in May. There's an article on each of those topics, along with an overall focus on the Securities and Futures industries. New Pics in the Robbery Suspects Gallery  The BankersOnline Bank Robbery page, has a whole new collection of photos and information on the latest bank robbery suspects. You'll find almost a hundred bandit pictures to circulate to your staff. Last month, we opened for discussion the idea of people wearing medical masks into the bank, because of the flu pandemic scare, and asked if we should expect some smart robbers to take advantage of the fact that we might tend to treat a medical mask as being less ominous than, for example, a ski mask? A recent robbery in Choctaw, OK, has made a few people sit up, take notice and think again! Go look!Alerts & Counterfeits We at BOL do our best to provide you with the Alerts and Counterfeits information as soon as it is released by the regulatory agencies, and we know that criminals don't wait for the end of the month to commit their crimes, but that certainly is when information on them is released. Twelve were published in just one day. Dealing with that many emails can be burdensome, so we have them listed for you in one easy to locate Alerts & Counterfeits page and of course, they are always recapped in the Compliance Briefing, published each business day. Twenty-six notices were sent in May. These notices were released on four different dates and all were a mix of mostly counterfeit cashier's checks and official checks, with one accounts payable check and one expense check. On May 28th there were 12 FDIC notices, two from the OCC on May 27th, 9 FDIC notices on May 20th with one being an Accounts Payable item, and the remaining three were from the FDIC on May 8th. While any bank can receive a counterfeit check from any other bank, the 26 items this month were from 18 different states. Some checks are very convincing, but with a little research, you'll detect the differences, such as:
 Another powerful security communication tool is the exchange of concerns, techniques and experience found in the Security Forums of BOL Bankers' Threads. The Public Security forum often features discussions about such diverse topics as the latest wrinkles on scams, data breaches, and identity theft. The Private Security forum -- open only to bankers -- provides insights into security concerns like ATM skimming, security vendors, closing procedures and other topics better discussed away from public view. If you don't yet have access to Bankers' Threads Private Forums, click here to learn how to gain admission. 
In the Security Blog learn about some new methods to commit credit fraud and provided some statistics on Identity Theft, what happens, how much is it costing the victim and how many hours it takes to get back to normal. Another post is about social engineering and how one man gained the confidence of office employees and a guard, so that he could set up his temporary office in their meeting room. He was there for several days with access to everything he wanted, including passwords, filing cabinets and the data room. It was a security test, they didn't do well, and you can read how some of this was done. The last post on this blog for May is about a robbery that happened because a branch wasn't properly cleared. It could have been deadly. The thief managed to taser a teller eight times. All this is in the BOL Security Blog. Concerned about privacy? You may be interested in reading how a major bank is being sued for $155,000 because their customer gave that amount of money to her husband. It all started with a marketing call from the bank. This post is in the Banker Blog. Three new Banker Tools were posted in May.We know that "what gets checked, gets done." That is one reason "KYAuditor" created an audit workpaper to ensure the banks Red Flags and ID Theft Program would meet all the regulatory requirements. Just in case there are problems with your Red Flags program or if you want to tweak your training, "Rizzo" prepared a PowerPoint training presentation. You can download "Red Flag 101 Training" as it is targeted to new hires and as a refresher course. If you want to make your training fun, turn it into a game. Jay Lee did just that and created a second version of BSA Jeopardy. This version is in PowerPoint and the answers and questions all work off hyperlinks. All three of these tools are free and may be customized by you. You can find them on the Banker Tools page under "Our Newest Tools." | |||
Data security remains a hot topic, whether it relates to creating, storing, accessing, processing, or transmitting information. The drivers for increasing data security requirements are many and varied, ranging from emerging technology to plain old theft for financial gain. As technology evolves, risk and threats evolve, bringing changes in regulations to keep up with the technology. Both evolving technology and adapting regulations require changing or developing new processes, policies, controls, and training. The current economic climate will also produce increasing risks which no doubt will bring even more regulation. Already we are hearing about "stress testing" requirements.
