How to protect yourself in a few simple steps from malicious e-mail threats.
Currently, only about 3% of the malware Computer Systems Support & Design encounters exploits a technical flaw. The other 97% are trying to trick your end-users through some scheme into clicking on a link, opening a file, or downloading some content. Today’s online criminals are far more likely to target user behavior. It is considerably easier to find a person who is willing to click on a malicious e-mail link, than to exploit a highly complex operating system.
Big Money, Big Question
Cyber crooks in China reported to have made millions from writing and distributing Trojans designed to steal passwords for online gaming accounts. Criminals said to have made tens of millions from small and medium-sized businesses in the US through malicious programs distributed via spam designed to steal online banking credentials. A spamming operation that generated monthly sales of between around $400,000 and $750,000 because one in every 30,000 of its advertising emails resulted in a sale. Do you remember the Nigeria scam of the widow of the deposed dictator? Surprise, it is still around because it is still working after all these years.
As these examples demonstrate, there's big money to be made in cyber-crime. Stolen bank logins, for instance, may only command prices below $10 per record (though high-value data will come at a considerably higher price), but with hundreds of thousands of lists constantly changing hands, fortunes can still be made with minimal effort. You may say "We are just a small company and have no valuable data". Think again and see our article Security by Obscurity is no Security at this link.
What's more, your personal cost generally exceeds the black market value of the stolen information many times over. It's estimated that anyone losing data with a 'retail' value of $10 will actually incur around over $200 in costs, taking into account not just financial losses but also inconvenience and time spent dealing with the incident and putting straight the resulting mess.
So the big question for your business is - are you content to withstand the financial hits that email threats inevitably deliver? Or would it actually save you money if you could implement an email security solution that blocks virtually every threat at internet level before it even approaches your corporate gateway, with minimal demand on your in-house IT resources?
The risk of becoming a victim of cyber-crime is very real. So too are the costs. But making the right call where email security is concerned will mean your business can stop paying them.
What can you do to Protect your Company Assets from Cyber Criminals?
The first line of defense is user education. Advise your users to treat any inbound inquiry with a healthy degree of skepticism. This includes not only emails and links to unknown websites, but also phone calls coming into your organization.
The second line of defense is to have up–to-date Antivirus, Anti-Malware and Anti-spam programs installed not only on your user’s workstations, but also on the servers.
The third line of defense calls for security appliances at the edge of your network that filter all incoming packets for any malware that might piggyback on packets destined for your users, in effect preventing malware and threats from ever entering your network.
To find peace-of-mind and not become an unwitting victim contact us for our Network Security Assessment pointing out “holes” in your defenses and suggesting inexpensive fixes. There is no charge for this service.
Don’t delay, call us now.
Safe Networking!
