Annually, since the beginning of our modern “Information Age,” thousands of people have their identities stolen and have to report illegal access to their personal bank accounts. Such personal identity theft costs victims vast amounts of money.

Now, in addition to personal identity theft, there exists corporate identity theft. It is the dishonest use of a company’s identity for personal gain.

Corporate identity theft can happen in many ways: using a business name to open an online merchant account, damaging the information on a company’s website by hacking into it, finding private information like bank statements and employee names in the garbage, or preventing people from arriving at a certain business by making a website with a domain name that appears to be the company’s.