Cyber criminals are constantly ‘upping their game’ which means as a business we must be one step ahead of them. In this current climate, the last thing you want is another NHS scale crisis on your hands!
Nobody wants to be a victim of a cyber attack and Phishing is the most common method in the world at the moment.
In 2016, Phishing caused $3.1b in damages.
Make sure you don’t take the bait.
PHISHING.
This is a social engineering type of cyber attack. It occurs when an attacker, masquerading as a trusted entity, dupes a victim into opening an email attachment.
To avoid any damage being done to your business, let’s take a step back and look at what we can do to prevent this ever happening.
My Top 5 tips to prevent Phishing attacks in the workplace are;
- BE VIGILANT – If you think something is suspicious then there must be a reason for that. Do not ever think you are a fool or asking a silly question if you receive something you don’t like the look of. Contact your internal or external IT technicians or specialists for anything you are unsure about. They are there to help and your vigilance could save your company ££££’s.
- INVEST IN QUALITY SECURITY HARDWARE – Yes, the best does cost the most money, but like with most things IT Security is the same, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR! I think you would agree that it would be better to pay x amount of money for a top of the range firewall, than it would be paying a cyber criminal to get your data back.
- MAKE OTHER PEOPLE AROUND YOU AWARE – If you have heard that there is a lot of Phishing attacks doing the rounds, tell your colleagues, tell your IT providers, tell whoever you feel needs to know! The more people kept in the loop, the better.
- MONITOR INBOUND EMAILS – You or your IT provider will no doubt have access to your inbound email servers. Keep a close eye on them to see if a particular user is being targeted more than another, and take the appropriate action to firefight the situation.
- CYBER ESSENTIALS – The Cyber Essentials scheme helps prevent the vast majority of cyber attacks and the documentation is free to download and any organisation can use them to put essential security controls in place. If you choose to go ahead with the scheme you will be able to protect your organisation against common cyber threats and it will also show your customers you take internet and data security very seriously.
