Safeguard Your Customers' -- and Your Own -- Online Identity

• File a local police report. You'll need multiple copies of the report to send to creditors to prove you've been a victim of identity theft.
• File a complaint with the FTC. It's important that you log any occurrence of identity theft with this agency.
• Pull copies of your credit periodically to check for new fraudulent charges. Once your information's out there, it can be resold multiple times, so it's a good idea to regularly check your credit report, especially during the first year after you discover the identity theft. For more detailed information from the FTC on what procedures to follow if you become a victim, visit their identity theft site.

Make Them Secure

As a business owner, you want to do all you can to protect your online customers and make them feel secure when they shop on your site. If you operate a retail Web site, here's some expert advice on how to help make your site safer for your holiday shoppers:

• Set up a secure Web site. Set up firewalls and SSL encryption, and get third-party verification from a company like VeriSign or TRUSTe. "VeriSign is probably the best for transaction verification," says Davis, "while Web sites like TRUSTe are extremely good for making sure your site isn't hackable."
• Scan your Web site for vulnerabilities. Faulkner recommends using a company like ScanAlert to scan your Web site for intrusion points where people can penetrate your security and get in behind the scenes of your site and into your database.
• Post your privacy policy very clearly on your Web site, usually in the footer at the bottom of the page. "Your privacy policy should contain information on what kind of data you're collecting, how you're going to collect it, how you're going to store it, and if you're going to sell it to third parties," Faulkner says. "More importantly, I've seen a lot of merchants now updating those privacy policies with what types of security measures they're taking to store that data."