Identity Theft a Huge Problem for Small Businesses

Sure, it's not cheap, but the repercussions of stolen customer information will certainly be steeper.

Loss Can Be Hefty

You will certainly lose customers if you can't protect their information. But more importantly, a small business can run into serious financial trouble, even go under, if a customer's identity gets stolen. Just the cost of paying for a credit monitoring service to help mitigate any problems a client can face will cost $40 to $120 per hit. And if you're a business with 10,000 customers, can you afford, asks Foley, to spend $40,000 on credit monitoring?

That's just the tip of the iceberg, says Coenen, who is also author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud (Wiley). Hiring a lawyer, a consultant to plug your security holes and a consultant to recover lost data can run you another $25,000.

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