Last month, the FTC delayed the implementation of the Red Flags Rule compliance for a fifth time this month.

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Red Flags Rule, an unprecedented move in the federal government’s fight against id theft, has once again seen its deadline for nationwide compliance pushed back to accommodate requests from Congress.

One of the major components of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Red Flags Rule is going beyond integration of a fraud prevention security measure and adequately training all applicable staff members for the system’s proper operation. Undertrained staff can often miss opportunities to detect and isolate identity theft red flags.

This year has been an unfortunately busy one for the fraud prevention and identity security industry, with the rate of corporate data breaches, business fraud and identity thefts continuing to rise. In 2009, phishing attacks alone increased by as much as 600 percent according to Bank Info Security’s Linda McGlasson.

Data breaches like the one reported in Wired magazine’s Threat Level blog are the reasons that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Red Flags Rule will be a groundbreaking—and necessary—call for standardization and compliance of consumer and business security measures. According to the story, a class action lawsuit is now being brought against the manufacturer of a bank-card-processing system that failed to meet industry security standards for payment systems. The lack of security resulted in consumers having their personal financial data stolen by a hacker operating in Romania.

Online financial services are both a convenient and dangerous industry. While they have undoubtedly improved the availability of personal financial tools for millions of Americans, they have also provided anonymous tools for identity thieves and fraudsters to victimize both personal and professional financial accounts.

With the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Red Flags Rule compliance deadline being pushed back from November 1, 2009 to June 1, 2010, all eyes in the security industry are once again on the FTC. They’re looking for proof that the continued delay of the Red Flags Rule is being done in lieu of progression toward the promised national standard of fraud security. According to the results from a year of research, the progression is well under way.