Special Report Thief in the office - KYTX CBS 19

TYLER (KYTX) -- Sony, CitiBank and Google are just three in a long list of companies that were hacked recently, and a new study says 90-percent of American businesses have had cyber security breaches. But what about a thief that physically walks through the front door?

The average business is full of security holes because the vast majority of us are honest people. We don't walk into our offices or cubicles with an eye on what can be stolen or mis-used.

But there are people who do, and we wanted a better idea of how they operate. So we invited a private security and identity theft expert to CBS 19 and told only a limited number of people in the building.

"A thief sees information as a stack of cash," Mark Seguin of TBG Fraud Solutions said.

Seguin came in the front door and started at reception. Right away, a major problem.

"A lot of times the mail is brought to their desk to be sent out or received," he said.

Seguin found bills with sensitive information, just waiting to be opened.

"I work with a lot of different companies and I find that I find more information there than, typically, in any other part of the building," he said.

Before he moved on, two employees walked right by Seguin, apparently not worried about him being there.

In the employee mailboxes, he found confidential faxes and pay stubs with nothing x'd out.

In individual offices, some things were visible on desk tops, like every dollar and cent that went in or out last year in the official budget. Others were just an arm's reach away in un-locked file drawers.

"[Honest employees] see data, a checkbook, a file, an ID, a wallet, a purse, as just someone's information and no one thinks about it," Seguin said. "But a thief sees it as an opportunity to make a lot of money."

After Seguin came across several computers left logged in, he found one that looked secure. But there was a problem. That users's password was written on a post-it note attached to the screen.

"Bottom line, most employees, or at least the ones who keep their jobs are hard-working, honest and trust-worthy," he said. "And if you're trust-worthy you tend to be trusting of others."

When it was all over, our would-be thief had managed to rifle through 9 file drawers, gained access to 4 computers, and talked to 3 employees, no questions asked.

For the record, every exterior door at CBS 19 is locked 24 hours a day, and we've made quite a few changes after seeing what Seguin was able to do.

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