Cyber theft can strike at any time, and has become pervasive in our increasingly digital world. Even seasoned business owners like a judge on the well known Shark Tank reality show have fallen prey to overseas thieves trying to steal them blind.
Criminality has advanced far beyond the Nigerian Prince scams of the early 21st century. Now, hackers have grown smart enough to pretend to be your fellow businesses, co-workers, and even your friends. That’s right, by just changing one letter in an email address, or the source account (gmail, hotmail, et al.), anyone from any part of the world can pretend to be someone you know.
Even worse, they can use this to request financial information from you.
How It Happens | Business Phishing Protection | Ransomware Protection
A cyber thief will target your business and begin to learn how your office operates. They will use information on your website and LinkedIn to track down who works there, and they may even pretend to be a potential client in order to gain access. Even easier for them, if they get the password to an email address, they can imitate your co-workers, and study their working schedules.
Once the hacker feels confident in their access, they will use someone within the United States to set up a “mule” banking account, which makes a financial transaction less suspicious once it’s completed. Mule accounts are wholly illegal, and many individuals who fall prey to criminals who need them are jailed. But there’s a new sucker born every minute, so the mule accounts don’t stop.
The hacker will study your business and wait until a large transaction is approaching. It could be a bill payment, a business-to-business transaction, or a large purchase. Around the time you may send the request for wire information, a hacker will email you, pretending to be the other party, and send the mule account information instead.
Even worse, a hacker might call you with the information and imitate the voice of the other party. Situations like these are typically reserved for very large corporations, where the dollar amounts are in the hundreds of thousands. But don’t think it can’t happen to you!
You mistakenly wire the money to the mule account and the mule account sends the money abroad before shuttering completely. By the time you realize you’ve made a mistake, or your client hasn’t received their funds, the money is sitting in a bank account on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
On top of that, if the dollar amounts are under six digits, the FBI likely won’t take the time to investigate, since they deal with cases in the millions of dollars day and night.
How to Protect Yourself | Digital Vault Rooms
Your troubles begin once a hacker gains entry to an email address or a trove of files. Use Digital Secure Vault Rooms to prevent this.
Vault Rooms provide added layers of security, so that when criminals want to break into your accounts, it’s much more difficult to do. Moreover, Vault Rooms has a 24/7 staff dedicated to secure file transfer and information allocation.
In the same way that you install a house alarm to stave off burglary, trust Vault Rooms to be that ADT sign in your front yard. Once a criminal realizes we’re on your side, they’ll go find somebody else. It’s not worth their time and trouble.
Here are more tips that any business should be aware of, when protecting themselves against criminality:
-Secure email addresses and train staff members on avoiding spam mail.
-Double check the spelling of an email address when sending important information.
-Always conduct transfers over the phone, and audibly confirm important information.
-Change email passwords monthly. Annoying, we know, but necessary!
Vault Rooms – A Leading Virtual Data Room Provider
Vault Rooms has served accountants, private equity firms, banks, brokers, investment bankers, and more, for the past 13 years. We work 24/7/365, with access to every piece of documentation you need.
Secure digital Vault Rooms lead the industry in ensuring businesses both large and small are able to continue running in both times of national crisis and times of wellbeing. Join the hundreds of businesses who have already trusted us with their crucial documents, and invest in yourself and the future of your company.
