A Guide to Protecting Your Business and Recovering from Business Identity Theft

Business identity theft pamphlet (PDF)

Contents
Introduction
You are herePrevention checklist
Checklist for victims
Additional identity theft resources

Prevention checklist

The following tips will help you to protect your business, your employees, and your customers from becoming victims of identity theft.

  Protect your business records on file with the Colorado Secretary of State by taking the following steps:

  • Assign a trusted person(s) to be responsible for maintaining and monitoring your business record with the Secretary of State.
  • Sign up for email notification about changes to your business record.
  • Sign up for Secure Business Filing.
  • Note your renewal/reporting dates in your business calendar and file the renewal/report on time.
  • File any changes to your business in a timely fashion (such as address, registered agent, name changes, or other changes).
  • Check your business details on the Colorado Secretary of State's website.
  • If changes have been made without your permission or knowledge, let the Colorado Secretary of State know and correct your business record. Please see the "Checklist for Victims" for steps to report the fraud with the proper authorities and to further protect your business.
  • Dissolve your business on the Secretary of State's website if you determine that you will no longer be doing business. If you dissolve your business, you should still stay subscribed to that entity so you can receive notices if anything on the record changes.

Besides protecting and monitoring your business record on the Colorado Secretary of State's website, you may want to consider the following:

  Create and follow a security strategy in your business plan.

  Choose a top-level manager to implement the plan if you become a victim.

  If you need help in designing a plan, enlist an expert.

  Report any lost or stolen credit cards immediately to law enforcement and the credit card provider.

  Check your accounts and bills and immediately report any suspicious activity to the originating company.

  Protect your EIN (employer identification number), account numbers, and other personal information.

  Create and follow a policy for carrying, using, and reporting a lost or stolen business credit card.

  Inventory documents that you maintain.

  Store only those documents you must keep, and keep them in a safe and secure location.

  If you plan to discard documents, shred them using a cross cut or "confetti" shredder.

  Treat the personal information of your customers and employees with as much concern as you would treat your own.

  Do not share any sensitive information online.

  If you must share sensitive information online, check that the website is secure by looking for "https" in the website address.

  Provide employees with a safe and secure location to keep their personal items (wallets, purses, car keys, etc.) while at work.

  Store employee information such as personnel files, tax, and payroll information in a secure location and limit the number of people who have access to these files.

  Use passwords to protect sensitive information.

  Avoid creating "master" users who have complete access to all the business's sensitive information.