Article Advise

submitted: Sep 4th 2008 | by: PaulWilcox | Total views: 1 | Word Count: 431 | |

Annually, since the beginning of our modern "Information Age," thousands of people have their identities stolen and have to report illegal access to their personal bank accounts. Such personal identity theft costs victims vast amounts of money.

This crime has now extended to corporate identity theft. Just as the name suggests, corporate identity theft is the misuse of a company's identity for personal use.

Corporate identity theft can happen in many ways: using a business name to open an online merchant account, damaging the information on a company's website by hacking into it, finding private information like bank statements and employee names in the garbage, or preventing people from arriving at a certain business by making a website with a domain name that appears to be the company's.

Taking Preventive Measures

All of these forms of corporate identity theft are preventable through various measures.

Maintenance of the website is most critical; in the age of the Internet, most identity theft takes place online. Have IT staff monitor website access regularly, and include an email address on the home page for end users to report any unusual occurrences. For example, there have been cases in which a company website was hacked and pornographic material distributed through it. Obviously this was a major embarrassment for the company's professional image. In order to prevent traffic stealing, a good practice would be to regularly check for similar domain names, or register commonly misspelled variations to prevent others from doing so.

Making good use of paper shredders is very important in the business world. If a sensitive document is lost or misplaced, corporate identity theft could occur more easily. Shredding documents will keep thieves from finding information they could use against a company.

Finally, be sure that computer networks are secure. Regularly updated virus protection software, strong firewalls, adware and spyware blockers and secure passwords are good ways of maintaining a secure network. Have a strict policy about Internet use; employees that surf the Internet during work hours not only are being unproductive, they also put the integrity of the company at risk when accessing sites that could potentially deliver spyware or adware.

Putting these tips into practice will be a powerful deterrent against corporate identity theft. Thieves are constantly learning new ways to pass by the defenses they know that businesses employ to protect themselves, so no computer system should ever be considered 100% safe. Criminals are always trying to develop another technique to steal identities. Don't let them! Instead, make good use of the most recent protections offered and protect your company's good name.

About the Author

Do you know how to fully protect yourself from spam and other online security threats? Find out how to stop spam and other security attacks on the Online Security Toolkit website. Visit http://www.onlinesecuritytoolkit.com for more information.

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