Since the beginning of the Information Age, personal identity theft has flourished. Fraudulent transactions concerning large amounts of money are reported by thousands of people because unauthorized people have accessed accounts illegally.

Corporations are not immune to this type of crime. Corporate identity theft is the misuse of a company’s identity for personal use.

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.

Taking Preventive Measures

Corporate identity theft is preventable through various precautions.

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 companys 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.

Another cause of rising corporate identity theft is that of misplaced paper documents. Misplaced hard documents are another cause of rising corporate identity theft. Shred all paper documents to percent sensitive data from being stolen.

Finally, secure your computer networks by regularly updating virus protection software, strengthening firewalls, adware and spyware blockers and changing passwords periodically. Develop a policy about Internet use and talk with your employees about it. By surfing the Internet during work hours, your employees may be putting the integrity of the company at risk by accessing sites with spyware or adware.

Consider these guidelines and you will ensure the greatest chance of avoiding corporate identity theft. Criminals are always scheming up ways to infiltrate your organization, no matter how secure you are. Remember that computer software and company policies are fallible. Keep your methods of protecting up to date and be vigilant about protecting sensitive material.