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Selecting the Right Investigator – Part I
 Every organization will
eventually find itself in the situation where it needs to conduct an
investigation related to an internal matter. It is often appropriate to
select a third party investigator due to an array of legal issues and
responsibilities. Typically, when an organization decides that an
external investigation is required, time is of the essence and liability
and cost are on the rise while the situation goes unresolved. But how
does an organization go about choosing an investigator?
A workplace
investigation is a delicate undertaking fraught with liability and
pitfalls. The wrong investigator can make the cure worse than the
disease. The investigator and their team should have a combination of
experience, education, and continuing professional development sufficient
for the level of sophistication of the investigation. Furthermore, we
recommend that any organization consider these factors in selecting an
investigator:
- Licensing – Select
an investigator who is licensed (if required). An unlicensed investigator
can be criminally charged for their participation in an investigation –
furthermore, their results can be discredited or even excluded from a
courtroom (all but 5 states require licensure).
- Training – The agency selected should
provide professional training and rigorous screening to its employees.
Furthermore, continuing education is an essential to ongoing professional
expertise.
- Experience – Ensure that
the investigative agency and its employees have the necessary experience
to do the job properly, considering the type of investigation they
propose.
- Reputation – As with any
profession, the best investigative agencies are well known in the business
community and are active in trade associations. Ask for references and
check them thoroughly. Learn the agency’s litigation and claims
experience – litigation is part of the business, and even the best
agencies will be sued at least occasionally, but a record of sloppy work,
high-profile lawsuits, and big settlements is troubling.
- Willingness to Testify – Every workplace
situation that requires an investigation has the potential to end up in
court. Every investigator should be willing to testify and see their
cases through.
There are more factors that contribute to
the selection process. Next month, we will continue discussing how to
choose the right investigator in Part II.
Adapted from
Investigations in the Workplace by Eugene Ferraro, Auerbach Publications,
2006.
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EBay
Counterfeit Fraud is a Growing Problem
 Technology is often a double-edged sword, and eBay, the San
Jose based online auction giant, is no exception. While we are free to
buy and sell all kinds of goods on the convenient, global, virtual
marketplace, fraudsters are taking the fun out of eBay for several hundred
buyers a day. EBay fraudsters most successful scam is to advertise a
genuine item (an iPod or Rolex for example), then deliver a counterfeit
item to the unsuspecting auction winner. Even if the auction winner is
aware of the scam, they have limited recourse as far as getting their
money back or reporting the scam.
EBay estimates that
one one-hundredth of one percent of all goods sold in its auctions involve
some type of fraud, but when one considers that there are over 6 million
new listings per day, it becomes apparent that there are hundreds of
thousands of victims per year.
EBay has not been
negligent in addressing the issue, as it has over one thousand employees
dedicated to detecting fraud, and it has developed measures to shut down
auctions in progress if they are suspicious. In the meantime, consumers
should be wary of red flags, such as individuals who post an inordinate
number of auctions, negative or lack of feedback on an auctioneer, the
lack of a return policy or the insistence on completing the transaction
offline.
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If you have yet to become familiar with the software title SnagIt, this is one product that you need to get to
know, not only for its applications, but the potential security risk
involved with it. SnagIt (current version is 8.0) is a screen capture
program that allows the user to take a screen shot of any application in
progress and to save the file as most any type of image file, including as
a .PDF. A user can even add text, arrows, or effects to the “snagged”
image prior to saving it in the desired format. SnagIt comes in very
handy for getting graphics into presentations, emails, blogs, or instant
messages.
Such a powerful tool comes inherent
with its own security considerations. A criminal would see a different
set of uses for SnagIt that aren’t in the user manual. How many people do
you know who use their digitized written signature as part of their email
signature block? Using SnagIt, one could capture such a signature and place
the image of it at the end of a critical document. Just as the
possibilities for the noble user are practically limitless, so too are the
uses for the criminal.
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Quote: Work and acquire,
and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Computer Users Beware: Keylogging is on the Rise
 Do you use a computer to
conduct your banking, pay bills or access other sensitive personal data?
Like most in the United States and throughout the world, you probably
answered yes to this question, which may put you at greater risk of
becoming a victim of an innovative form of cyber crime known as
keylogging. This form of electronic con involves the silent copying of
keystrokes of unwary computer users via a "backdoor" in a PC, all in an
effort to gather personal data. Cyber thieves who monitor their victims’
keystrokes typically take interest in and begin recording information only
when the victim enters a site of interest to them. Examples include sites
which require user names and passwords to access personal data, such as
on-line banking websites or online credit card accounts. Even snapshots
of a victim’s screen can be recorded by these thieves. Once the desired
information is accessed, the cyber thieves are able to make unauthorized
transactions on the users personal accounts and in nearly all cases, the
user has no idea their personal information has been compromised. In two
recent cases in Brazil and Russia, cyber thieves successfully accessed
personal bank accounts via keylogging software and stole close to 6
million dollars overall.
More often than not,
keylogging programs are hidden within other software applications, hence
making this form of cyber crime all the more surreptitious. There are a
multitude of ways that key logging programs can be installed on your
computer, from spyware web downloads, files that are shared through
Instant Messenger, files hidden within peer-to-peer applications or
downloads, attachments, and email. Because keylogging programs are
typically hidden in software before infecting the machine, they are
classified as malicious types of programs known as “Trojan horses.” Once a
computer has been infected with a Trojan horse, the user may notice the
following symptoms, which are indicative of infection: increase in pop up
messages, computer instability, dramatically slow network performance, the
presence of new tool bars in the web browser, and other such difficulties
that were not present prior to infection.
Although there is some debate on which specific types of anti-virus
software provides the best protection against surreptitious keylogging
programs, it is agreed upon that computer users can take some basic
precautions against keylogging. Some precautionary steps include: always
keep your computer's operating system up-to-date with security patches,
install and run anti-virus and spyware removal software regularly, and
perform a full system scan weekly with anti-virus and spyware removal
software.
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Online Resource for Crime Statistics
Melissa Data of California has developed a resource tool for
looking up crime statistics in cities and states across the country. The Crime Statistics Lookup allows for the viewing of
statistical information related to crimes that impact a city’s crime index
rating. For example, one might be surprised to learn that Palm Springs,
CA has a much higher (worse) crime index rating (835) than Los Angeles
(435), despite having only 4 murders committed in 2004 compared to LA’s
518 in 2004 (the most recent year of Uniform Crime Statistics from the
FBI), and despite roughly 3.5 cars being stolen every hour in LA. Melissa
Data also offers several other Lookups, such as latitude/longitude locators, zip code
registries, labor statistics, and campaign contributions – just to name a
few.
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Good News for
Employers of the Future Workers of America
Employers have a vested interest in the health and
productivity of their employees. Most employers are paying increasing
attention to substance abuse in their workplaces due to the variety of
potentially hazardous consequences that may result from substance
abusing-employees, such as an increased turnover and absenteeism,
insurance costs, likelihood of accidents, and decreased profit, to name a
few.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA),
the international illicit drug trade is a $300 billion a year industry.
What’s more, the DEA estimates that %60 of all illicit drugs in the world
are consumed in the U.S. Of those illegal drugs consumed here, %75 or
more are consumed by people with jobs, resulting in an estimated domestic
economic impact of over $150 billion annually.
The good
news to employers? The University of Michigan’s 2005 study, Monitoring the
Future, revealed that substance abuse among youth has declined by nearly
20% since 2001. Especially encouraging was the sharp decline of use of
methamphetamines and steroids among youths. This is promising data to our
economy and to those of use who will be employing these youths in our
workforce in the coming years. Of concern, however, is the increase of
abuse of prescription drugs, namely Oxycontin, which itself saw a 26%
increase in abuse. The overall decline of abuse has been attributed to a
variety of factors including: DEA enforcement, declining substance
availability, and targeted drug awareness campaigns.
Source: Monitoring the Future, University of Michigan,
2005.
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