Unfortunately, it is a fact that criminals are always on the lookout for new business opportunities to take advantage of others. Criminals don’t care whether the business they want to target is a restaurant or a bank. But by taking advantage of their lack of financial knowledge, they will get their grubby paws on all kinds of businesses – leaving a business owner’s insurance policy looking like a frayed mess.
One of the most common ways criminals attempt to penetrate a business involves identity theft. The ultimate goal of these thieves is to steal the personal information of an unsuspecting business owner and use it to drain his bank account. As you can imagine, this type of crime can be extremely expensive and devastating to a small business owner. In fact, it can take years to recover from the financial losses incurred as a result of a cyber attack. Simply put, no business wants to experience that kind of loss. Therefore, protecting your company from cyber criminals means developing a comprehensive plan that includes a strong identity theft prevention plan.
Unfortunately, many business owners make the mistake of thinking that they can “guess” when someone has been accessing their accounts. In other words, they presume that if their employees or customers to give them a clean bill of health then it’s probably just part of the job. This is often not the case. Just because it’s hard to believe doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It’s simply too easy for crooks to lie about their identity.
There are two types of identity theft: first is “offense-based”, which means the thief got access to the information by hacking into your company’s computer system. Second, is “soft” or “recreational” – the thief got access to the information by opening a bogus bank account using your name and using your social security number. These are both very common types of identity theft, and often the same crime occurs. Each has different ways of damaging your company, but both are very costly.
One of the most effective ways of deterring criminals is to not only monitor your computer activity, but to track all outgoing emails. Emails in clear reference to your company can be looked at as a suspicious activity and you can be held accountable. Many crooks are aware of the fact that some businesses do check for suspicious activity on their computers. Therefore, by using a tracking device such as an IP tracker, you can find out exactly where a particular computer is located and also what pages it was looking at.
Additionally, you may want to think about hiring an expert to protect your business. There are companies that can monitor your computer activities 24 hours a day and help you prevent any sort of data breach. While this service costs more up front, it can save you from incurring huge losses if identity theft does happen. Not only is it costly to replace stolen personal identity, but businesses pay high prices to replace computers and other valuable equipment.