CONSTRUCTION Accounting ARTICLE -
Contractor S hocked into Action by Corporate Identity Theft

Target Audience: Construction Industry Professionals, Accounting Consulting Interest, Identity Theft Interest, Cost-effective Fraud Prevention Methods Interest, Internet Fraud

Through hard work and a considerable amount of foresight, an ambitious contractor in a mixed commercial and residential area had kept his company’s head above water in a tough market during the past year. He was quite proud of this accomplishment and thought all was well until one day, while surfing the Internet, he came across a Web page with his company’s name and logo.

Problem was, it wasn’t the Web site he’d set up. And it contained all the wrong contact information. Turns out, an ex-employee had set up the site to draw away some of his company’s business.

Naturally, the contractor got his attorney involved immediately and quickly put a stop to the fraudulent Web site. But he also mentioned the incident to his financial advisor, who offered a few ideas about some cost-effective ways to prevent further corporate identity theft.

In this case, the particular danger that the contractor encountered is known as “cybersquatting.” Rather than redirect traffic from his site to another page, his fraudster former employee used his company’s name to create a false domain. Unfortunately, this type of fraud is remarkably easy to commit — anyone can register a domain name that hasn’t already been taken, even if he or she simply changes the “.com” in one domain name to “.biz.” Once established, a fraudulent Web site can accept orders — and payments — from customers without the victim’s knowledge.

As this contractor learned, he could strike back at such fraudsters through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN; icann.org). He also considered filing a lawsuit under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

Going forward, the contractor’s financial advisor recommended that he strengthen security on his Web site, too. For starters, he should invest the time and money to ensure that all of his company’s computers and mobile communications devices are thoroughly and continually protected with updated firewalls, spyware blockers and virus protection programs. In addition, he needed to establish regularly updated procedures for running monthly Internet checks for false domain names related to his business.

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