CYBER THREATS & SOME COMMON SENSE MEASURES

Recently a working professional was waiting to wire a large sum of money to an attorney involving a personal matter, which was a source of enormous stress, anger and fatigue.

He received an email that, on closer look, was suspicious. However, given his impaired emotional state he didn’t pay enough attention to it and quickly transferred the money. Either his or an attorney’s computer had been hacked.

Fortunately, the Secret Service was informed immediately, and the money was soon recovered.

In order to be more cautious in protecting our assets, here are some common information security definitions which we should make familiar:

Social Engineering: the use of?deception?to?manipulate?individuals into?divulging confidential or personal information that may be used for?fraudulent?purposes.

Malware: malicious software designed to interfere with a computer's normal functioning, a blanket term for viruses, trojans, and other destructive computer programs threat actors use to infect systems and networks to gain access to sensitive information.

Phishing: a scam where thieves attempt to steal personal or financial account information by sending deceptive electronic messages that trick unsuspecting consumers into disclosing personal information.

Spear Phishing: a type of phishing campaign—a small and focused attack that targets a specific person or group and often will include information known to be of interest to the target, such as current events or financial documents.

It can involve researching social media, linked relationships and CEO fraud.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator): Clicking on a given link can allow an attacker to get access to a device and install viruses or malware or even a ransomware attack.

Make sure to check the link itself to see if it has been shortened, if a spelling mistake has been made, or if the address differs from the legitimate sender

HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a variant of the standard web transfer protocol (HTTP) that adds a layer of security on the data in transit through a secure socket layer (SSL) or transport layer security (TLS) protocol connection.

Beyond taking these precautions, it’s worthwhile asking your banks, credit card companies, and homeowners and business insurers what type of cyber protection is offered.

This working professional was incredibly lucky—for most victims of such attacks, the Secret Service is unable to step in and save the day. In his case it would have spelled financial ruin.

Wait until your relaxed and focused before starting the ritual of opening emails and text messages. And be especially vigilant about any that involve your assets, even when they appear to be from those you trust.

It’s not just the elderly with memory loss who are getting scammed. These cyber criminals have more tricks up their sleeves than ever.