TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Waco) has introduced legislation aimed at combating identity fraud by providing grants to states to improve their identity protection systems.
The legislation would provide federal grants to states to fund innovation in identity fraud protections. The exact grant amounts have not been specified. Sessions said the goal is to establish a nationwide standard for identity verification that industry and law enforcement could follow.
“It is to have a nationwide standard that we believe could be employed, where people would understand what we’re doing and it would be intended to hit the mark so that industry would know what the standards are,” Sessions said. “And law enforcement would know those standards, too.”
Sessions said part of the bill’s focus is moving away from Social Security numbers as a primary identifier, noting that the current…
IT & DATA SECURITY (MITIGATING THE “INSIDER THREAT”)
As seen in the TD Bank case, an employee with too much “access” can sell your customer data to syndicates.
- Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP): Employees should only have access to the specific folders and databases required for their current task.
- Access Revocation: Have a “Termination Checklist” that ensures all digital access (Email, VPN, Banking) is revoked within 60 minutes of an employee resigning or being dismissed.
- System Logs & Audit Trails: Enable “Read/Write Logging” on your server. If a customer’s data is leaked, you need to know exactly which login accessed that record and at what time.
- Encryption at Rest: Ensure that sensitive files (like your customer ID numbers or payroll spreadsheets) are encrypted so that if a staff member copies them to a USB, they cannot be read.