Digital Spooks: Revisiting Cybercriminal Behaviour over Halloween

We love a good horror story over Halloween.? We get excited about spooks, monsters, and witches.? The carnivalesque oranges and reds can all be a bit distracting for everyone over the Halloween period.? For most people it is a great way to let your hair down and create spooktacular puns.? For others, it is a way to wreak havoc on your business data.

Cybercriminals love a bit of Halloween.? People are more likely to click links to sales, QR codes are more likely to be utilised.? Customers and employees are just likely to be a little more vulnerable than normal.? That’s why we choose to revisit cybersecurity, before everyone’s attention gets drawn to the festivities.

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Phishing Scams are rife

Your team, whether in the office or set up remotely, might be using their lunchbreaks to shop online and compare prices.? They need to buy costumes for the kids, sweets for the trick-or-treaters, and apples for the bobbers at the party they are planning.? Halloween deals will be flowing from every email marketing platform.? Not all of them are going to be legitimate.

At risk of teaching grandma how to suck chocolate eggs, it is worth revisiting your cybersecurity training.? Remember to look out for typos in links and page content, don’t download any attachments you are not 100% sure of, and just be a little more vigilant.

A reminder about quishing

It’s not just in the office you have to be careful.? If you ever let your phone roam the company wi-fi, then you are best to make sure that you are not snap happy with every QR code you see at Halloween themed markets or shopping malls.?

Quishing, as humourous as it might sound, is becoming a very large problem, and you need to make sure that you are guarding against it. Don’t just click every QR Code, and definitely don’t use a phone that you will then log onto your business wi-fi.

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Alexa, remind me about my Internet of Things device

A lot of offices have smart technology.? A lot of printers and CCTV cameras are hooked up to the internet.? Many people working from home will be logging on to unsecured devices that use the internet.? These devices are all vulnerable, and you need to make sure that you keep your firmware up to date.

These are easy to forget, but actually can provide very quick routes and pathways for cyber criminals to get to your business Wi-Fi.? Protect these items properly, or if you can, avoid using them entirely in your office.

It’s about being careful?

It is unlikely that you are going to avoid encountering a scam or cyberattack.? Whether you are just browsing Facebook, selling something on social media, or quickly going through your emails.? The point is to stay vigilant at all times.

If you are following your cybersecurity training, and keeping everything up to date and backed up, you should be able to circumvent the majority of all cyber attacks.

If you need more information about how cybercriminals will target you then please contact us on 01327 300 311, or email [email protected] with any enquiry.