Standards for Cybersecurity and Personal Finance: Identity Theft

Name: Decision Making

Standard: 2

• Students will understand that: Effective decision making requires comparing the additional costs of alternatives with the additional benefits. Many choices involve doing a little more or a little less of something: few choices "are all or nothing" decisions.
• Students will be able to use this knowledge to: Make effective decisions as consumers, producers, savers, investors, and citizens.

Name: Investing

Standard: 4

• Students will understand that: People can choose to invest some of their money in financial assets to achieve long-term financial goals, such as buying a house, funding future education, or securing retirement income. Investors receive a return on their investment in the form of income and/or growth in value of their investment over time. People can more easily achieve their financial goals by investing steadily over many years, reinvesting dividends, and capital gains to compound their returns. Investors have many choices of investments that differ in expected rates of return and risk. Riskier investments tend to earn higher long-run rates of return than lower-risk investments. Investors select investments that are consistent with their risk tolerance, and they diversify across a number of different investment choices to reduce investment risk.

Name: Managing Risk

Standard: 6

• Students will understand that: People are exposed to personal risks that can result in lost income, assets, health, life, or identity. They can choose to manage those risks by accepting, reducing, or transferring them to others. When people transfer risk by buying insurance, they pay money now in return for the insurer covering some or all financial losses that may occur in the future. Common types of insurance include health insurance, life insurance, and homeowner’s or renter’s insurance. The cost of insurance is related to the size of the potential loss, the likelihood that the loss event will happen, and the risk characteristics of the asset or person being insured. Identity theft is a growing concern for consumers and business. Stolen personal information can result in financial losses and fraudulent credit charges. The risk of identity theft can be minimized by carefully guarding personal financial information.