Is Your Business Prepared For The Latest Cybercrimes and Phishing Schemes?
You’d never believe the problems phishing schemes create. Just last week a hospital in California had to pay $17,000 to get their data back! Here are just a few of the very recent exploits that we’ve seen from phishing scams. Exploits that are not out of the ordinary—schemes that could quite possibly affect your business- regardless of size, geography, vertical.
I want to be very clear that cybersecurity IS something you need to be thinking about!
- Apple Phishing— “Click on this link if you did not authorize the purchase”. Seems like a reasonable security check, right?
In this case, cybercriminals exploit Apple standard security measures by phishing your email with a faulty Apple email checking validity of a purchase!
What you don’t know is the link doesn’t actually lead back to a phishing site.
- Meta Refreshing—meta refresh is a method of refreshing a current web page after a given time interval. In cases of meta refresh phishing, the procedure actually transfers web visitor to a completely different URL that is a phishing site!
- IRS email schemes—the Internal Revenue Service recently released a consumer alert to nepharious email schemes, up 400% from last tax season!
And IRS schemes come in two flavors: attacking tax filers AND tax collectors!
Tax Filers: The emails are designed to trick you into revealing information—personal tax information that could be used in filing false tax returns. The longer you wait in filing your tax return, the more chance criminals have to file a false return for you!
Tax Collectors: Cybercriminals pretend to be tax collectors claiming you owe taxes. Remember, the IRS will never reach you by email—don’t fall into an IRS phishing scam!
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flavors of phishing scams. With criminals always trying to be one step ahead—changing the narrative and trying to make their story more and more believable, more credible, what’s steps should you take?
First of all, I’d recommend starting by watching these videos we’ve made on avoiding phishing traps:
- What is phishing and how you can safe while surfing online
- Understand the different types of phishing scams being used
- How you can avoid online scams
Second, you need to seriously think about your business security.
Do you have a cybersecurity plan? Are your users aware of the risks?
Does your team know how to deal with questionable emails?
Do you have limitations on website visitation?
How do you know Cryptowall or Cryptolocker isn’t on the other end of that link or email attachment? How can you avoid crippling productivity while protecting your business, your business data and your team?
Contact Cheryl Gholson on our team today to set up a cybersecurity meeting, and forward these videos to everyone you know.
