The volume of cyber attacks and frauds have skyrocketed, especially preying on people using their fear and paranoia amid the pandemic.
What are the cybercriminals after you ask?
Business email compromise (BEC) scams are designed to trick victims into transferring sensitive data or funds — personal or corporate — to threat actors’ accounts. To protect your company as well as your employees, it is important to remain informed.
Firstly, here are 4 commonly found cyber attack techniques you need to be aware of wrt the pandemic –
1. Emails masquerading as government announcements
Threat actors are sending fake government announcements with legitimate-looking logos and landing pages. This is to steal your email credentials.
2. Hidden malware in business emails
Malware hidden in emails prompting users to click on inviting links like – “coronavirus maps”, “spreading of coronavirus”, etc.
3. False advice and cures
Some phishing emails invited recipients to download “secret cures” for the virus. Instead, the attachment included malware.
4. False charity
Other emails solicited donations to fight the spread of the virus.
Here are 9 simple yet effective ways to prevent yourself from the most common attacks centered around the pandemic :
1. Be skeptical of emails from unknown senders or familiar people (like your company’s CEO or your doctor) who do not usually communicate directly with you.
2. Don’t click on links or open attachments from those senders
3. Don’t forward suspicious emails to co-workers.
4. Examine the sender’s email address to ensure it’s from a true account. Hover over the link to expose the associated web addresses in the “to” and “from” fields; look for slight character changes that make email addresses appear visually accurate — a .com domain where it should be .gov, for example.
5. Note grammatical errors in the text of the email; they’re usually a sure sign of fraud.
6. Report suspicious emails to the IT or security department.
7. Install the corporate-approved anti-phishing filter on browsers and emails.
8. Use the corporate-approved anti-virus software to scan attachments.
9. Never donate to charities via links included in an email; instead, go directly to the charity website to donate.
Now that you are well-informed, it’s time to stay vigilant. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And Trixter is that ounce of prevention you need. We’re working with SMEs amidst the pandemic to help them fix their vulnerabilities and become resilient towards the above mentioned cyber attacks. What’s more, we’re offering a free vulnerability assessment to all SMEs currently.
You can get in touch with us by simply filling up the contact form here.
Follow Trixter Cyber Solutions on LinkedIn for a weekly dose of useful cybersecurity updates and information.
