Adding privacy leadership services to your firm's practices.

Lyndon Group has faced the current recession by adding a new service to help businesses halt customer identity theft.

Based in Newport, CA, Lyndon Group (www.Lyndon-Group.com) is an accounting, finance, IT, and corporate governance professional services firm specializing in project-based engagements. Lyndon Group serves both public and private companies and has professionals engaged at some of the best known companies in the world, as well as middle market and emerging growth organizations. The firm has been very successful over the last nine months at launching several new service areas and divisions tailored to different sizes of businesses (predominantly smaller businesses).

Lyndon Group's practice areas span a wide range of sophisticated business areas, including accounting, finance, IT, governance, risk, and compliance. On August 11, 2009, the firm announced the addition of a practice area specifically tailored for the region's small and middle-market businesses: privacy leadership services.

The new service offering empowers businesses to reduce the risk of customer identity theft and data misuse and mismanagement. Larger businesses generally have the where-withal to acquire technology and employ full time manpower to execute security and privacy policies effectively. However, small and midsize businesses more likely need assistance and direction from the outside.

Recently, IndyStar.com reported that "A rising swarm of cyber-robberies targeting small firms, local governments, schools, faith groups, and nonprofits has prompted an extraordinary warning. The American Bankers Association and the FBI are advising small and midsize businesses that conduct financial transactions over the Internet to dedicate a PC to use only for online banking." (See "Designate a Computer for Online Transactions" on page 3.)

Privacy's Effect on the Bottom Line

Lyndon Group's new practice area focuses on helping small and midsize businesses understand why privacy is important to a company's bottom line. Client companies also gain an understanding of industry-specific privacy issues and the steps to take to develop an ongoing privacy and risk mitigation program addressing current and future requirements.

Every company that collects, manages, shares, or stores personal information faces significant risk from failing to comply with regulatory and legal requirements. The risks include damage to a company's reputation and brand and business relationships, legal...