Security freeze is the latest buzzword in the world of privacy and online security. It was used today in the title of an article in The Wall Street Journal's Personal Journal section, Freezing Out Identity Theft.

Here's how it used in the first sentence of the article:

In an effort to combat the rapidly escalating outbreak of identity-theft crimes, a handful of states including California and Texas have passed legislation that allows consumers to put a "security freeze" on their credit history.

Action Item
Use this phrase in your marketing to reassure wary customers. For example,

• "Once you report any fraud, phishing, or identity theft, we will put a security freeze on your bank accounts against any unauthorized withdrawals."
• "If someone tries to guess your password, we'll freeze your account against any more attempts."

And eventually as you develop more advanced security preferences, customers will have the ability to put their own selected security freezes or locks on their accounts. For example, users that always access from one computer, could lock-out any access attempts from other IP addresses (see Quova for tools in this area). Or the customer could lock their account against point-of-sale transactions in other states and countries.

To learn more about how to promote online security and customer peace of mind, check out Marketing Security: The sensitive issue of publicizing security and authorization enhancements from our sister publication, the Online Banking Report.