Comprehensive Identity Theft – 2026 Update- A/V​

CPE Credit: 2 hours

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize the major forms of identity theft, identity fraud, and cyber-enabled financial crime affecting individuals, businesses, and government programs, including emerging threats involving artificial intelligence.

2. Differentiate among common identity theft schemes, including financial identity theft, medical identity theft, criminal identity theft, child identity theft, professional identity theft, synthetic identity fraud, account takeover fraud, and government benefits fraud.

3. Identify the primary methods criminals use to obtain personally identifiable information (PII), including phishing, smishing, vishing, business email compromise (BEC), ransomware, malware, data breaches, social engineering, QR code fraud, credential theft, and other cyberattack techniques.

4. Evaluate how artificial intelligence has changed the identity theft threat landscape through deepfakes, synthetic identities, automated phishing campaigns, fraudulent documents, and AI-assisted cyberattacks.

5. Assess organizational and personal cybersecurity controls designed to reduce identity theft risk, including multi-factor authentication, password management, encryption, virtual private networks (VPNs), endpoint protection, cloud security controls, vendor due diligence, and Security Organization Control (SOC) reports.

6. Evaluate common internal control weaknesses that increase exposure to identity theft, data breaches, and cyber fraud within accounting, finance, payroll, human resources, and information technology environments.

7. Determine appropriate preventive measures for safeguarding personally identifiable information, financial accounts, mobile devices, payment systems, social media, physical documents, and electronic records.

8. Identify appropriate response procedures following suspected identity theft or identity fraud, including notification requirements, reporting to law enforcement and regulatory agencies, credit protection measures, documentation, and recovery actions.

9. Apply practical fraud prevention and cybersecurity practices to strengthen organizational governance, reduce identity theft risk, and improve protection of sensitive financial and personal information.