Cybercrimes happen every 14 seconds… is your business next?


Cybercrime is a big business, in fact 58% of cyber-attack victims were small businesses in 2018. If your business is attacked, the damage could cause financial strain or cause you to close the business. The lost revenue due to system downtime, the money spent attempting to remediate a breach and the reputational damage can really add up. While spending time and resources on making sure your network is secure and up to date is extremely important, it’s equally important to provide training for your employees. The top cybersecurity threat to small businesses is internal, because employees mistakenly let the cyber criminals in. While cyber threats change daily, the two most common we’ve seen recently are:

Ransomware– A virus downloaded via employees clicking on phishing links that is intended to bring business to a standstill, by locking up data with a demand for extortion money or else… the complete destruction of all data.

Funds Transfer Fraud- Hackers manipulate businesses or their clients to wire money into the hacker’s bank account. Simply put, money is accidentally wired to the wrong place.

 

Can it happen to you?

If you don’t think it can happen to you, we encourage you to think again. In the last week, two Florida cities have been hacked and over $1 million dollars were paid in ransom to gain access to their system. The details for these are below:

Lake City, Florida

“The mayor of Lake City told CBS 47 Action News Jax on Tuesday that the small city in northern Florida would give the hackers $460,000 to hand back control of email and other servers seized two weeks ago. I would’ve never dreamed this could’ve happened, especially in a small town like this, Lake City Mayor Stephen Witt told Action News Jax.â€

Riviera Beach, Florida

“The leaders of Riviera Beach, Fla., looking weary, met quietly this week for an extraordinary vote to pay nearly $600,000 in ransom to hackers who paralyzed the city’s computer systems.â€

 

It’s projected that by 2021, cybercrimes will cost $6 trillion worldwide. This activity will not slow down as we increase technology use, it will only become more complicated. Please call your account advisor today to discuss cyber protection for your business.