Phishing is one of the most dangerous forms of identity theft. It’s usually presented in the form of pop-ups or spam emails. The majority of account takeovers come from simple phishing attacks where someone in an organization gets tricked into releasing private credentials and information.

Never give your contact details over the phone. This includes user IDs, passwords, Social Security numbers or other personal information. The IRS, a bank, Microsoft or other legitimate organizations will never call and ask you for this information.

Be suspicious of every email. Never click on a link or open an attachment in an email without verifying the sender’s identity and intent.  Always be suspicious of any email asking you to verify information, send money or pay an overdue invoice.

Don’t respond to a CEO request for urgent payments. There have been numerous cases where a CEO’s contact information was spoofed and used to convince employees to send money to scammers. Contact the CEO directly to determine if this is a fraudulent request.

It doesn’t take long for a hacker to steal your company secrets.  

More Tips To Share With Your Staff

Be cautious about opening attachments. They may contain malware that can infect your computer.

Type in URLs and email addresses, don’t click the link email.

Use Two-Factor Authentication. It requires both your password and an additional piece of information to log in to your account.

Always update your applications and operating system. Don’t delay, as they will protect your computer and network from the latest threats.

Back up your files to an external hard drive or cloud storage to ensure you have a duplicate of all your files and applications if your network is compromised.

What Else You Can Do

Ask our IT Security Experts to provide a layered and managed security protection for your technology. A layered security approach combines best-in-class firewalls, web-filtering, and software-update services to protect your network from viruses, malware, and hackers.

Tell your employees to let you know if they experience the following:   

• They can’t open their files, or they get error messages saying a file is corrupted or contains the wrong extension.
• A window pops up with a ransomware program they can’t close. This window may contain a message about paying a ransom to unlock files.
• A message says that a countdown has started for a ransom to decrypt files and that it will increase over time.
• They see files in their directories with names like “How to decrypt files.txt or decrypt_instructions.html.”

Have questions?

Our team can conduct Security Awareness Training for your employees. This way they’ll know what to do if they get a phishing email.