With electronic, identity and cyber fraud on the rise nationally, local business owners are being encouraged to educate themselves on ways they can protect themselves and their customers.
On Thursday morning, the Surrey Board of Trade will be providing a chance to speak with experts in law enforcement, finance and identity protection to find out how they can guard their information and assets, as well as those of their customers, from would-be thieves.
"Think about it from your own point of view. When you go into a business, you do so with confidence that the information that they have for you is well-kept," says Canadian Identity Resources founder George Greenwood. "Well, what if it wasn't?"
Greenwood has prepared a best practices model for the protection of electronic information in business, which he plans on introducing at the event.
Besides the usual misuse of pay card readers and signatures forged from company documents, Greenwood says he's seen lots of recent problems coming from the BYOD or "bring your own device" policies many companies have in place today.
"If I'm carrying sensitive documents for my business, i.e. customer files, account information and so on, and I decide to leave that company, that company has no right to go after that information because it's on my personal equipment," says Greenwood.
When analyzing one's own business to look for potential security threats, Greenwood cautions that many of the problems may have evolved slowly over a matter of years.
"Step out of your own space and look at it like a stranger and you might be shocked at what you see, because you really haven't paid attention to it the way you should have," says Greenwood.
The event will be held Thursday morning from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. at Eaglequest Golf Course, 7778 152 St. No pre-registration is required.
Copies of Greenwood's best practices model will be available online at www.businessinsurrey.com.