The San Francisco Chapter of the Western Pension and Benefits Council is excited to welcome the Federal Bureau of Investigation to speak to us at our November 14 meeting about their experiences with Cyber Crime and its prevalence in the employee benefit plan arena. 

Recently, we have seen a number of incidents of CyberCrime impacting employee benefit plans.  These crimes include hacking into employee records, the exposure of participant information on unsecure computers and cyber attacks on retirement plan recordkeeping systems.  These threats are real and they appear to be growing in the Employee Benefits marketplace. 

In March, 2012, FBI Director Robert Muller shared the following with an audience here in San Francisco:

 “Terrorism does remain the FBI’s top priority, but in the not too-distant-future we anticipate that the cyber threat will pose the greatest threat to our country,”

In addition, results published in the Norton CyberCrime 2011 report show the cost and extent of online crime in the country – with a global bill reaching US $388 billion.  Unfortunately employee benefit plan arena is not immune to such trends. 

The 2011 Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans examined the current state of benefit plan administration, and how technology has created opportunities and challenges for keeping personal identifiable information of plan participants and beneficiaries in retirement and certain welfare benefit plans private and secure. Their examination highlighted an extensive list of data breaches that have occurred in employee benefit plans.

Save the date and mark your calendars for this fun and informative visit by an FBI Cyber Crime expert.

More information to come….