Protect Your Business from Email Attacks in 2022

Email attacks can have a large impact on small businesses. In its 2021 Internet Crime Report, the FBI revealed that small businesses lost $2.4 billion to a specific type of cybercrime, business email compromise (BEC). In these attacks, the criminals either imitate a user and their email address, known as spoofing, or gain access to those accounts to send fraudulent emails. The FBI received almost 20,000 complaints from small companies about BEC incidents alone. Although not focused on email attacks specifically, another 2021 report showed that a business’s average cost of cybercrime was $25,000.

You’re far from alone if you own a small business and don’t know where you’d find that money to deal with a cyber-attack. Those numbers could spell the end of your business. Some companies have enrolled in cyber liability insurance to cushion the blow should they fall victim to such a crime. Such insurance is essential in our modern technological era and can mean the difference between recovery or having to shutter your doors after a cybercrime.

However, you don’t have to wait for the worst-case scenario to respond to email attacks. You can take preventative measures to ensure your company doesn’t become a victim of cyber attackers, to begin with. Email attacks typically require some action from the recipient to be successful. This might mean clicking a link before entering identifying or log-in information (the basis of a phishing attack), sending money or information to a cybercriminal posing as someone else or pretending to have blackmail material, or downloading malicious files to their work devices.

Unfortunately, cybercriminals took advantage of the opportunities to scam people created during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which more people moved to working from home (WFH) and virtual meetings over Zoom or similar platforms. They increasingly posed as medical authorities and CEOs, which allowed them to send dangerous files or get their hands on sensitive information. Although many have returned to the office, criminals haven’t let up on their activities, so you must still be vigilant.

However, there are often telltale signs that these messages aren’t legitimate, including sender information and the content of the message, which may not include company letterheads or proper language use. Official communication often includes the recipient’s first name and rarely asks for information that bad actors could use.

Training your employees to recognize potentially fraudulent activity instead of falling prey to these schemes. For this training to be effective, your employees must put the information into action. Fortunately, you can check for compliance by sending messages with a few sketchy details to see how your employees respond or hire the services of a security company to perform a similar test. If your employees click, download, or answer these messages, that information goes to you or your representative, not a criminal who could harm your business.

These tests are helpful because you can target the weakest links in your small businesses by sitting down with employees who were fooled by the fake email(s) and providing additional training to help them better recognize dangerous emails in the future. Doing this might be more cost-effective than re-training your entire staff, especially if most are good at not falling for these attacks.

Training and testing are two of the ways to protect your business from cybercrime, such as phishing or business email compromise attacks. If you’re ready to fortify your business against cyber attacks, schedule a call to see how Simplitfy can assist you.

Erick Solms is the Founder of Simplitfy in West Palm Beach, Florida. Simplitfy provides IT and cybersecurity services to Small and Medium Business in South Florida. To contact him personally or to inquire about information technology services, please email [email protected] or visit www.simplitfy.com.