Government regulators have delayed a deadline for compliance with Red Flags Rule instituted under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, after the Federal Trade Commission moved the deadline to next June.

But IT experts say many businesses not affected by the rule, which requires financial institutions and creditors to address security vulnerabilities that could lead to identity theft, should be looking at their data storage and desktop security not merely to meet minimum compliance.

Due to the increasing volume of risks and the liabilities of inadvertent data loss, mid-sized businesses should take seriously their responsibility of protecting customers from identity theft, IT experts said.

Ed Moyle, founding partner at Security Curve and a former VP of information security at Merrill Lynch, said businesses need to make sure they are at minimum compliant with regulations, but also look for opportunities to address IT issues proactively, Computerworld reported.

The bottom line is that IT issues are strategic issues that many companies may not be adequately addressing in their IT departments. Companies increasingly are outsourcing IT to industry partners to handle data storage and compliance.

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