Is my Small Business Safe from Identity Theft?

September 1, 2009 -- When most of us hear of identity theft we first think of someone stealing information from our garbage can and using it to open an account. While personal identity theft is a real threat, many small business owners fail to realize that their business is subject to identity theft as well.

Many of us try to keep our personal data hidden from others; however, as businesses we often times promote pieces of this private data – address, contact information, phone number, and even business license number.

Just as you do in your personal life, it is important to take steps to protect your small business from identity theft. Some basic steps include:

1. Check your business credit report

2. Be sure to have an email security system in place to prevent spam, viruses, and phishing

3. Lock down the network – firewalls, encrytion

4. Shred important documents (dumpster diving is still common)

According to a Panda security report, a surprising 29% of small businesses don’t have a spam filtering solution. Additionally, 16% of small businesses do not have firewalls.

About MarketLink Services
MarketLink Services has provided channel development, sales and marketing solutions for many start-ups, SME's and leading high-tech companies since 1997. Drawing on our vast experience and key relationships in the industry, MarketLink customizes sales, marketing and distribution plans for effective penetration into desired markets. We have built our success upon delivering measurable results for clients through targeted, strategic campaigns to achieve market dominance.  The depth and breadth of experience in the MarketLink team enables us to deliver services that bridge the gap between manufacturer, reseller and consumer.   For more information visit www.marketlinkservices.com

About Mailprotector
Mailprotector, a division of VirtualConnect Technologies, Inc., is a leader in email security. Founded in 1999, the company is a pioneer in the managed email security industry with its Exchange Spam Filter and has since grown into a complete managed security suite protecting all email hardware and software platforms (Exchange, Groupwise, IMail, SmarterMail, Sendmail, qMail, Merak and all others) from outside the network perimeter. Today, Mailprotector provides uninterrupted virus and vulnerability scanning, spam and phishing filtration, attack and email backup protection as well as data loss prevention (DLP) to more than 3,000 organizations on six continents.