Remember when we used to do all our business face to face or over the phone? Thanks to the wonderful invention that we know as the internet, those days are long gone. We can now communicate with hundreds of people every day from the comfort of our desks, just by pressing a few buttons.
We now send over 205 billion emails every single day, and that figure is predicted to rise to 246 billion by the end of 2019. That’s a whole lot of messages, but all that productivity comes at a risk. Emails are to hackers like a damp dishcloth to germs; an open invitation to spread lots of nasty viruses.
You and your team are being targeted by email fraudsters. Organised criminal gangs of hackers are targeting all businesses, especially your size. They want to steal data, or lock it so you have to pay to get it back. Scammers are so clever now that they can create impostor emails that look so much like the real thing that they can fool even the most savvy business person into handing over important information without even realising it.
You know the scariest thing? Scammers are targeting CEOs, MDs, FDs and other senior staff and in our experience, the CEO or MD is most likely to break the rules. Often, they can be the greatest data security risk in the business. if they can get you to click on a link in a dodgy email and access your computer, you typically have access to higher level systems. Which is potentially more profitable for them.
Instead of wasting time sending phishing emails to random email addresses, cyber criminals are now doing their research to get to the goodies more quickly. They use social engineering tools to carefully select their next targets, impersonating key staff members or trusted partners to trick their victims into transferring funds online.
