Cybercrime Increases In Calgary During COVID-19

During COVID-19, There Have Been Noticeable Increases Of Cybercrime

Any crisis is an opportunity for cybercriminals to strike – and a crisis as severe as the coronavirus pandemic is no exception.

Cybercriminals are expected to take advantage of the confusion and lack of awareness that comes with changing the way a majority of the professional world gets their work done. As more and more employees transition to a work-from-home model, they’ll be perfect targets for social engineering scams and cybercriminal attacks.

Do you know how to keep them, and your business as a whole, secure?

Check out our latest video to learn more:

3 Cybercrime Scams You Need To Watch Out For

Share this info with your staff:

• Miracle Cure Emails: There is currently no vaccine for coronavirus, and there certainly isn’t any type of miracle cure either. If someone emails you about a miracle cure, don’t engage. Don’t download anything from the email, and don’t click any links. They’ll likely just infect your systems with malware.
• Wire Transfer Requests: Just like before coronavirus hit, you shouldn’t engage with anyone that makes a wire transfer request over email. Always confirm these transfers with superiors and recipients via phone.
• Password Requests: Please note that tech industry giants like Microsoft and Google aren’t going to call you to ask for your password. This is a common scam carried out by cybercriminals to break into your accounts and steal information.

How To Maintain Your Business’ Remote Cybersecurity

Keep the following tips in mind:

Verify Payments Via Phone

As you can’t meet in person to verify major financial transactions, the least you can do is confirm over the phone with the contact. Never execute a wire transfer based on an email request alone – it could very well be a cybercriminal posing as a business contact or third party organization.

Educate Your Employees

Now more than ever, your employees need to know how to spot social engineering scams:

• Phishing: Phishing (and all social engineering techniques) is about the element of surprise. It’s a method in which cybercriminals send fraudulent emails that appear to be from reputable sources to get recipients to reveal sensitive information and execute significant financial transfers.
  
• Business Email Compromise: Business Email Compromise is a social engineering technique used by cybercriminals in which they pose as a business or member of a business to execute fraudulent payments. In layman’s terms, a cybercriminal will write an email pretending to be from your credit union and request that a payment be processed – instead of a legitimate source, the payment will go to them.
  

Use A VPN

When you use a virtual private network (VPN), your data is encrypted, or hidden, as it moves from your device to the VPN and then continues onto the Internet. That makes it harder for an attacker to identify you as the source of the data – no matter whether you’re on your mobile device’s data connection or using an unsecured retail Wi-Fi network while you’re in line for coffee.

Stay Safe While Mobile

Don’t download apps that aren’t approved by your smartphone provider’s app store. Unauthorized apps are a common way for hackers to sneak malware onto your device. Always be skeptical of permissions you grant and the data you provide when using mobile technology.

Stay Up To Date

Did you know that one of the most common ways that cybercriminals get into a network is through loopholes in popular software? Much of the software you rely on to get work done every day could have flaws — or “exploits” — that leave you vulnerable to security breaches.  To address this, developers regularly release software patches and updates to fix those flaws and protect users. This is why you must keep your applications and systems up to date.

If you need help securing up your remote work solutions, don’t assume you have to handle it on your own. 403Tech can assist – we will help you map out a cybersecurity strategy to protect your business during the pandemic.

For further assistance with protecting you and your remote workers from cybercriminals, click here to get in touch with us or call us at (403) 215-7506.