Small Businesses are often the victims of financial misdeeds

Large businesses often employ dedicated experts to protect their assets. Unfortunately, smaller business can't afford these resources, and therefore are more vulnerable to fraud losses.

And it's easier for these larger businesses to write-off their fraud losses. The sad truth is that - if not managed properly - fraud losses can put a smaller business "out of business."

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners noted in the 2006 report to the nation that small businesses seem to suffer "disproportionate fraud losses," when compared to larger organizations.

I did a previous post, which links to the report, here.

I read an interesting article by Lena West (CEO of xynoMedia Technology) that offers some practical advice to small businesses.

Ms. West writes:

It is officially open-season on small businesses. Hackers, phishers, spammers and fraudsters often use small businesses as target practice before going after the big guys, though it's news that often doesn't make it in the headlines. No one really knows the true impact of online security breaches, as only 20 percent of businesses reported computer intrusions to legal authorities, according to the FBI and Computer Security Institute. And every online merchant knows the threat of bogus credit card purchases is one that never goes away.

Full story from e-commerceguide.com, here.

The story points on how to deal with and protect yourself from everything from data-breaches to credit/debit card chargebacks.

Since in my opinion (awareness is the best and most effective fraud tool) - this article is great information for anyone, who owns a smaller business.