Blog Posts Tagged with Small Business

You’ve heard about the “dark web” and wondered how it affects businesses – including small businesses. That was one of the topics addressed at an FTC conference earlier this year on identity theft...

In our Stick with Security blog series , we’ve done our best to dive deeper into data security by focusing on the lessons learned from recent cases, insights from closed investigations, and the...

High-profile hackers grab the headlines. But some data thieves prefer old school methods – rifling through file cabinets, pinching paperwork, and pilfering devices like smartphones and flash drives...

“Sound data security is a process, not a checklist.” We’ve all heard that slogan – and with good reason. The way that sensitive information moves into, through, and out of your company’s networks or...

Trust, but verify. That’s good advice in many contexts, including in your approach to businesses you hire to process sensitive data in your possession. Even if a breach ultimately traces back to a...

It sounds like there was some “inventing” going on at Florida-based invention promotion firm World Patent Marketing, but a Preliminary Injunction in a case brought by the FTC suggests it wasn’t the...

Your company has a killer concept for an innovative app or a connected product and you’re in that initial blue-sky-and-whiteboard stage. You’ll have lots of opportunities to develop your distribution...

Ask a business person where their office is located and the likely answer is “everywhere.” They’re working from home, staying in the loop while traveling, and catching up on email between sales calls...

Who’s coming in and what’s going out? Businesses that want to stick with security build commonsense monitoring into their brick-and-mortar operations. Whether it’s a key card reader at the door or a...

You’ve heard about Newton’s laws regarding bodies at rest and bodies in motion. A 21st century corollary is to protect sensitive information when it’s at rest on your network and implement effective...

To make it harder for hackers to bluff their way onto a computer network, careful companies follow the advice of Start with Security and require strong authentication practices . We’ve considered FTC...

When it comes to data security, what’s reasonable will depend on the size and nature of your business and the kind of data you deal with. But certain principles apply across the board: Don’t collect...

Savvy business people are on the lookout for ways to minimize their companies’ risk of a data breach. Many businesses consult the FTC’s complaints and orders, each of which includes a detailed...

Of course, phantom debt collection – the practice of pressuring people to pay “debts” they don’t owe – harms consumers. But as an FTC complaint demonstrates, when phantom debt collectors strike, they...

It typically started with a schmoozy call to an unsuspecting small business or nonprofit. Sometimes the caller claimed to be “confirming” an existing order, “verifying” an address, or offering a “free...

Rockne, Lombardi, Landry, Shula. Behind every sports dynasty, there’s a legendary coach. But according to the FTC , marketers of “business coaching” services took consumers for millions by using...

When internet fraudsters mimic a legitimate business to trick consumers into giving out their personal information, it’s called phishing. It’s not just a problem for consumers, but for the companies...

We often get the question, “If I comply with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, am I complying with what the FTC requires?” From the perspective of the staff of the Federal Trade Commission, NIST’s...