{"id":4377,"date":"2008-09-04T05:10:35","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T10:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/04\/the-hidden-costs-of-corporate-identity-theft\/"},"modified":"2008-09-04T05:10:35","modified_gmt":"2008-09-04T10:10:35","slug":"the-hidden-costs-of-corporate-identity-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/?p=4377","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Costs Of Corporate Identity Theft"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Paul Wilcox<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

There are several forms of corporate identity theft: setting up an online merchant account under a business name, going through trash to get sensitive information such as employee names or bank statements, hacking into the corporate website to corrupt the data presented, or creating a website with a similar domain name to draw traffic that otherwise would go to the company.<\/p>\n

Taking Preventive Measures<\/p>\n

All of these forms of corporate identity theft are preventable through various measures.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Lastly, do all that is possible to protect computer networks. This means using good firewalls, secure passwords, adware and spyware blockers, and a virus protection program that is kept updated to keep the network safe. Since surfing the Internet is not a productive activity, do not allow it. Besides reducing their productivity, employees who surf while working might unintentionally cause problems by introducing spyware or adware into their company’s network. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\n
About the Author:<\/div>\n
Are you wonder how to safely avoid spam and other internet security threats? Find out how to stop spam<\/a> and other threats on the Online Security Toolkit website. Visit http:\/\/www.onlinesecuritytoolkit.com for more information.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[133],"class_list":["post-4377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magic1host.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}