How Small Businesses Can Prevent Phishing Scams

•  Small business owners are prime targets for phishing scams, as their personal business information and the information of their customers are worth a great deal of money to fraudsters.

•  Online fraud has risen considerably within recent years, and the emergence of EMV will only continue to increase this.

• It is important for small business owners to always bealert and take security precautions online to safeguardagainst cyber criminals.

• Here are some tips on how small businesses can identifyand protect themselves from phishing e-mails.

•  Phishing is a tactic cyber criminals use to gather confidential information with deceptive websites and e-mails.

•  Cyber criminals will send out an e-mail disguised as a legitimate business, a bank, or as a friend.

•  Typically, phishing e-mails require the user to take action, such as opening an attachment or clicking on a link.

What is Phishing?

•  Cyber criminals will create these e-mails to be extremely convincing by including logos of businesses, contact information, or shipping/tracking information.

•  Once the phishing e-mails are formed, cyber criminals will then send them to millions of people worldwide.

•  Spear phishing is similar to phishing, but instead of distributing random e-mails to millions of possible victims, cyber attackers send specific targeted messages to just a few individuals.

•  Cyber criminals will research potential targets through their personal social media pages or other sites.

•  With this research, cyber criminals formulate a highly customized e-mail that looks relevant to the planned targets.

What is Spear Phishing?

•  To help protect small businesses from becoming victim of phishing e-mails, here are 7 steps small business owners should incorporate.

7 Steps to Prevent Phishing Scams

#1 – Be wary of any e-mail that sounds too good to be true. If the e-mail is promising $1,000,000, it likely is a scam.

#2 – Be leery of attachments within e-mails and only download items that are expected.

#3 – Be suspicious of e-mails that require immediate action. This is a common method to urge people to enter personal data and fall victim to fraud.

#4 – Check the e-mail addresses to see if they appear to come from a legitimate company. If the e-mail is coming from a personal account, such as Hotmail.com or Yahoo.com, it is probably a scam.

#5 Be cautious of e-mails addressed as “Dear Customer” or uses another form of generic greeting. Most reputable companies will address a user by their first and last name to prove they are authentic.

•  #6 – Take note of any grammatical or spelling mistakes, as most businesses proofread their e-mails before they are sent out.

•  #7 – Be cautious about unexpected e-mails from family or friends. Their computer could have become infected and is sending malicious e-mails on their behalf.

•  The battle against fraud is challenging, and it is essential that small businesses recognize all they can do to protect their business against cyber criminals.

•  To reduce exposure, small business owners should take the time to confirm any e-mails were sent from a trusted source and follow the above recommendations to ensure they have the maximum security possible.

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