The second annual Global Retail Theft Barometer estimated that over US$ 100 billion was stolen from retail businesses alone, with employee theft accounting for 36.5% of shrinkage ($38.15 billion), while supplier/vendor theft and supply chain fraud represented 5.8% of shrinkage ($6.09 billion). The threat to business from asset theft is therefore commercially significant.
Any business asset can be stolen by employees or third parties, or by employees and third parties acting in collusion. Examples of common employee and management theft include the direct theft of cash and company property or 'realisable' assets, such as stock and intellectual property.
The theft of personal or corporate identity information is estimated to cost consumers, businesses and government organizations around $1 trillion in losses worldwide each year. An estimated 20-25% of all identity theft cases involve telecommunications and the Internet, through hacking, phishing, spoofing, and spyware (E-Security). This makes it one of the fastest growing crimes and has been referred to as "the crime of the new millennium".
Corporate identity theft is the unlawful use of a corporation's identity and can take a number of forms, including changing the company's registered details and then ordering goods to be delivered to the "new" company address, using the real company's credit worthiness. A number of criminal networks have compromised the corporate identities of foreign-based companies in order effect high value transfers to foreign recipient banks. This is clearly a significant growth area of criminal activity.
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