When thinking about all the retail shopping going on this time of year -- starting with the frenzy known as "Black Friday" a few weeks ago -- something rather important comes to mind.: What are some of the most important retail and personal security precautions that need to be taken around the holidays? With billions in commerce occurring and credit card receipts flowing like water all around us, the environment can be ripe for identity theft artists to ply their criminal trade, while the shoplifting crowd stuffs pockets and purses and pants and everything else with in-store stolen goods.

So I asked security firm SecurityMetrics a few questions in this area to see what the experts had to say. The Q&A is below...

1) What are the top three types of fraud seen around the holidays?
- Email phishing attempts where an attacker tries to obtain someone's credentials to steal their money online.
- Credit card theft where an attacker steals your credit card information from servers on the Internet you previously shopped at.
- Viruses that provide unauthorized access to your computer workstation.

When shopping for clothes last week -- if you were brave enough to fight Black Friday crowds -- did you notice all the security tags on just about any piece of clothing you picked up? Those slender, semi-yellow tags have been affixed to store garments for years as a way to thwart shoplifting. The tags can cause a sensor to alarm if not deactivated or removed during the checkout process. The device has probably saved clothing retailers millions of dollar per year in prevented theft.

But, what if you walked out of the store with the security tags still present on your garments only to not have the alarms go off? Since there are many types of theft-prevention tags in use, some tags are left on but deactivated at the register once you check out (like Sensormatic or RFID tags). Other tags are never deactivated, simply removed and then re-used on other items.

With the hustle and bustle of this past weekend's shopping frenzy, did you notice that any tags left on your purchased clothes remained on the garments after you left the store? Perhaps some clerks were just overworked and neglected to remove every tag. Or maybe some stores just turned off security measures knowing the futility of trying to keep up with legions of shoppers. Nah, that can't be it.

Maybe Wal-Mart is prosecuting way too many shoplifters these days -- weighing down costs in court or something. In a rather bizarre move by the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart has decided to stop prosecuting shoplifters who steal items valued at less than $25 from its shelves. Maybe it'll just slap folks who steal a pack of gum on the wrist and send them on their way or something.

The new Wal-Mart policy calls for prosecuting anyone between the ages of 18 and 64 who shoplifts more than $25 -- where the threshold before had been $3. Reading from this source article, it looks like a cost-cutting policy change to me -- and it makes sense. Is the cost to prosecute someone who takes a $15 pair of shorts more than the shorts are worth? Of course it is -- probably by a factor of 10. Of course, this policy change includes that after a second incident of a less-than-$25 shoplifting charge, that prosecution will be reinstated. Otherwise, they'd see a rash of $10 shoplifting charges for groceries and the like most likely.

With many police officers actually stationed at Wal-Mart -- at taxpayer expense -- I'm sure many police departments across the country are breathing a sigh of relief here. The flood of petty arrests at Wal-Mart for just a few dollars worth of goods may finally be over, and extra uniforms can be deployed to more important things, like solving crimes and arresting drunk drivers. With Wal-Mart always seeking ways to reduce costs, this is a good move on its part.