Stop!  Thief!

When we think about identity theft, it’s usually about some unfortunate person.  The reality is it can happen to businesses too. It can happen on your business credit cards, forged payroll checks, or hijacking of sensitive information. 

Here are some steps your company should be taking to reduce the risk to your income:

1. Limit your people. Chances are your people want the protection from the finger pointing, so by reducing the amount of access to your financials, you are protecting them. The only people that need to see the financials are people who are directly interacting with the money.
2. Guard the checks. The checks do not need to be left out for anyone to get to and use. Make sure that you aren’t tempting people to take advantage of that precious paper that grants access to your funds.
3. Check your credit cards, always. Carefully select the employees that should handle your company card, and make sure they are trustworthy. Keep best practices and review the purchases on each billing statement. Closely examine for any extreme purchases that you will be paying for, and could potentially destroy your credit.
4. Encrypt your data. Just as you are taking precautions against any inside tampering, you need to make sure outsiders have complications getting to your data. Encrypt the data to keep it from prying eyes.