Get to grips with email security
Owners of small and medium-sized businesses often make the mistake of thinking that they aren’t on the criminals’ radar. But more than 40% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses – and email is usually the criminals’ way in.
Our new guide, ‘Getting to Grips with Email Security’, reveals why you might be vulnerable, what you need to look out for and what you can do to protect yourself.
It goes like this.
Everyone in the company gets an email at 6am. It comes from the head of IT and instructs everyone to follow a link to install an update.
Some people don’t spot that the head of IT’s name is spelt slightly wrong – a simple spoofing technique straight out of the cyber crime textbook.
By 9am people start losing access to their files. They’ve been encrypted. The link installed ransomware that’s making its way through the network. Customer data, employee information and other vital files are skimmed, ready to be sold on the dark web.
The criminals demand £75,000 to release the data back to the company.
The company tries for more than a week to remove the ransomware, but eventually they give in and pay the money. It takes another two days to get the decryption key, and when they open their files, half of the data is corrupt.
This happens a lot.
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So it’s vital that smaller businesses take email security seriously – because the cost of a cyber attack can’t just be measured in financial terms. It comes with a loss of productivity and loss of customer trust.
Studies show that 60% of small businesses that suffer a data breach close their doors within six months of the attack.
Research by Deloitte found that 91% of all cyber attacks begin with a phishing email (an email that looks like it’s from someone you know, but is actually from criminals).
Our new guide shows what steps to take so that you’re not a victim of this type of attack.
