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Cybercrime Precautions & Your Business: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself

  • Posted by Jared Peno

With the number of cybercrime reports on the rise, how are you protecting your personal and business information? What cybercrime precautions should you actively be taking? Begin by understanding the common types of internet fraud and the methods employed. Learn how to anticipate cybercrime and know the questions you need to ask yourself when trying to protect your information.

Social Media: Asset or Liability?

Be aware of the cumulative information about you that exists online via social media—ironically much of it posted by you. Unfortunately, any and all of this personal data can be researched, assembled, and adversely used against you.

Top Fraud Cases – Are You Vulnerable?

It’s important to understand the primary targets for fraud and assess your vulnerability. According to the FBI report statistics for 2017 filed under the IC3 Report.

  1. Tech Support Fraud: Beware of pop-up “computer infected” warning messages that offer a support assistance phone number that is fraudulent. (Establishing an ongoing relationship with a reliable technology service is the best precaution here.)
  2. Elder Fraud: Our elderly are targeted because they have disproportionately more resources to lose. Over 60 represents more than double the net loss than those in their 30’s.
  3. Extortion: Cybercrime hackers pride themselves on creating malware, ransomware and other malicious methods for extracting our money. This still represents the #1 cybercrime in 2017.

Firewalls or Human Vulnerabilities?

Whether it’s business email fraud, romance fraud, or refund fraud—the scam is often conducted through conversations or social interactions, and not the underground technical methods we expect. Instead of penetrating through firewalls, they go after human vulnerabilities, such as people wanting to be helpful. This method is commonly referred to as social engineering.

Do You Know Where Your Data Is?

The first step to securing your data is to known exactly where it is stored. Most of us would immediately point to the server in the closet, our desktop or cloud storage, but we would be overlooking other potentialities. Cyber criminals will target our emails, where it is said that up to 60% of an organization’s intellectual property can be reproduced from a corporate email system.

Who Is Your Technology Partner?

Being aware of these issues is a good start and all the more reason to partner with an expert technology team like Alliance Technologies, to help you anticipate and protect against cybercrime before it happens to you.

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