As small businesses continue to increase their use of technology and mobile access to conduct transactions, the drawback is the shift may potentially widen the space for cyber thieves to strike and drain commercial accounts in one fell swoop.

While consumers have stronger shields to protect their account under Federal Reserve Regulation E, which mandates that banks are required to provide reimbursement for certain fraud losses, that same protection does not apply to business and commercial accounts.

At best, the Uniform Commercial Code offers some relief by potentially holding a bank liable if it did not institute “commercially reasonable” security procedures to protect against fraud. However, there has been some ambiguity on what is considered commercially reasonable and banks tend to have the upper hand in putting together procedures that may shorten fraud reporting timelines.