**Originally published July 7, 2015, updated July 22, 2019**
Fraudsters are always in the market for a lucrative new target. So, what’s the most information-rich, security-poor victim they can exploit? A small business, of course.
According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), an organization on average loses a whopping 5% of their revenue to fraud each year — that’s potentially a global total loss of $4 Trillion dollars. And small businesses are impacted disproportionately harder by fraud, with a median loss of $200,000 for businesses with less than 100 employees. That’s almost twice as much as the median loss for companies with more than 100 employees ($104,000.)
Thankfully, there are a few tricks small business owners can use to combat potential fraud. And the best place to start is by looking at the main entry points of exploitation: occupational fraud, cyberattacks, and identity theft.
