Month: May 2022

2021 was witness to a number of major cyberattacks: SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange, Quanta, Colonial Pipeline, Kaseya, and Log4j. These attacks proved that food companies, utilities, supply chains and software providers could all be compromised. Cybercrime is up 600% since the pandemic began: Continue reading “Pandemic Blues: the Clock is Ticking and the Hackers are Calling.”

A local bank sent out a newsletter about how relying on caller ID is no longer possible. Scammers can spoof phone numbers. 

Also, watch out for callers impersonating a bank, credit card or other financial account representative. Don’t provide any PII or financial account information over the phone. Hang up and call your institution directly. Do not click any email links or texts if you don’t know if they are from who they say they are.

Watch out for scammers saying fraud has occurred and phone calls, texts, links or emails that try to get you to provide real information about your accounts. Don’t perform any sending or transferring of money by phone, text or email. Banks will never get you to transfer money to yourself.

• Who are you sending money to?
• Who are you talking to or emailing?
• Avoid giving out PII or account details.
• When in doubt, hang up and call your bank directly.
• Avoid urgent requests for money or supposed account problems.

You may not want to address cybersecurity, thinking it can’t happen to you. But it can. You hear the stories about the big companies hit with a cyberattack, but thousands of attacks are happening right now. Sixty seven percent of SMBs with fewer than 1,000 employees have experienced a cyberattack; fifty-eight percent have been hit with a data breach. An attack will affect everything you do–and more than likely (60% of SMBs) lead to bankruptcy within a year.

Everything you’ve worked for and love.

Finances are the thing that you as a business owner are, rightly, concerned about. Even if your company does not end up bankrupt, your business could be saddled with immense costs, possible fines and lawsuits over a data breach. Day-to-day operations that could be disrupted:  employee daily workflows, customer service, and regulation and compliance requirements.

Your plans for the future could also be threatened. You saw a vision for the future, attracting new customers, generating new business and creating a well-known brand. Your reputation could be damaged.

Part of the growth threatened is improvements in employee communication, performance, motivation and cyber savvy, and you can’t attract new, diverse talent to a company with a bad rep.

Over 92% of cyberattacks start with email. It may have been a careless employee who put your business at risk, clicking a phishing link or being scammed by email. That’s means you know how to stop most attacks: cyber education for your employees.

You need to prepare. Fight for what you love and built.

On the dark web you can buy call center services and bot armies that are amazing in scope (“hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. ..The group’s extraordinary profitability allows its leaders to invest in illicit research and development initiatives,’ the researchers say. ‘Wizard Spider is fully capable of hiring specialist talent, building new digital infrastructure, and purchasing access to advanced exploits.'”).  https://www.zdnet.com/article/wizard-spider-hacking-group-hires-cold-callers-to-scare-ransomware-victims-into-paying-up

It is impressive. Wizard Spider also leverages BEC.