IT security is one of the most important concerns that small and medium businesses consider while planning for IT support. There has been observed a high rise in cyber crime during the past decade which has become difficult to handle concern both for businesses and IT companies supporting small businesses.
Cybercrime is not just limited to hacking and exploitation of passwords and data. It involves social engineering and phishing to which small businesses are the most vulnerable victims. Cybercrime appears lucrative to employees of small enterprises to which they respond without knowing the consequences. Such kind of cyber crime is called business email crime or CEO fraud which could create multiple problems for small and medium businesses.
Now let’s see how cybercrime takes place. Generally, the hackers impersonate email accounts of managers of the targeted business and request the fraudulent transfers from the company’s staff. The hackers provide a domain to victims that look almost same as the original domain with a little bit of difference. For example, if “john.phillip@emilia.net” is the actual email address, the hacker will register a domain name like emillia.net and make an email “john.phillip@emillia.net”.
Fraudsters might learn the communication style of people with whom they are communicating through social media in order to avoid any kind of suspicion. If the plan goes well and the victim remains unaware of the matter, he or she can make and unauthorized transaction which could transfer cash into the hacker’s bank account.
According to the FBI reports, a steep rise has been seen in such kind of cyber crime. Thousands of companies have fallen prey to this type of crime. Any kind of business whether large of small can be the victim of such kind of cyber crime with real estate companies the potential victims of hackers.
Cyber security attacks
Such attacks happen across the globe and have been reported in hundreds of nations. Borders are not a problem for the hackers and this is a global issue. All they need is a computer and an internet connection. Even the big corporate are not isolated from this kind of attacks regardless of the level of security measures they have employed.
The only way to protect yourself from such attacks is companies should employ a two-step authentication both for emails and verification on phone for wired transfers. Companies should also instruct their staff to be aware of the suspicious e-mails and intrusion attempts.
Another increasing trend is ransomware, in which a hacker takes a device hostage and asks for money to return it. The viruses which are used to perform such attacks are not picked by the standard antivirus protection. So you will never know when you become a victim of such attack. Such attacks can steal your important and personal data and the hackers agree to return them only when you pay them money.
These attacks may encrypt your documents and files stored on your computer as well as network. Such attacks seem lucrative to the victims, especially to the people working in the small and medium companies. The best defense against ransomware is regular backups, if systems are compromised and data is encrypted then that data can be recovered from backups.
Cybercrime is not just limited to computers and laptops, it is also active on mobile phones and smart TV’s. Moreover using the advanced technology and open source encryption cyber crime is going to touch its new levels with high speed. You may take support from an IT company like Zero Effort Networking to protect your business from cyber attacks. If you are located in Sydney, then we can assist you with our services at your doorstep.
Zero Effort Networking IT support Sydney provides IT services in and around Sydney. For more information on IT support services, please call us on 1300 93 94 95 or email us at info@zen.net.au.