Some of your business’s most valuable assets are the email accounts you provide to employees and the servers that power them. They include details of countless transactions as well as sensitive information. This makes business emails a particularly lucrative target for cyberattacks, which have increased in number year after year.
Business email compromise (BEC) attacks have grown immensely, with the FBI saying this form of cyberattack cost victims $1 billion every year. Email was created decades before hacking was a multibillion-dollar industry. It was initially developed to be used almost entirely for transferring information. And because email is the lifeblood of most businesses, hackers and scammers target it more than any other IT solution. A recent report showed that even Fortune 500 companies weren’t spared from active BEC scams. What’s worse, most email cyberattacks are incredibly low-tech.
What is social engineering?
It’s when a hacker exploits human weaknesses rather than using technical hacking techniques to gain unauthorized access to data. Social engineers usually take advantage of human behavior to pull off scams and cyberattacks because it’s an easier strategy with a higher success rate than complex IT-driven hacks. Simply by tricking someone to give up a password, a social engineer can log in and snoop around for sensitive data or send emails posing as a trusted colleague asking for access to sensitive information. A business email can easily switch from being a tool for communication and storing crucial data to becoming a real threat.
We’ve already provided an overview on how security policies for your business can be implemented to make sure your business and employees are safe from BEC incidents. But here are some ways you and a managed IT services provider (MSP) can prevent employees from being compromised by a social engineer.
At Spectrumwise, we have state-of-the-art email filtering services that eliminate scam-ridden spam — a growing problem that lowers your staff’s productivity and threatens your network’s security.
Spectrumwise’s filtering program includes advanced features such as:
- Powerful spam detection protocols
- Identification and rejection of spam, phishing (using fake emails as bait to steal crucial information) emails, viruses, and spyware
- Strict anti-phishing rules
- User-based filter settings and login accounts for all employees
- Huge storage unloader for your server
Related article: Spectrumwise’s Ultimate Guide to Email Security
Meanwhile, here’s a list of what you can do when your business email has been breached:
#1 Check and lock down apps and services – Go through all of your accounts and information linked with the email address and cut off access via that address, if you are lucky enough to notice the breach early on. For example, your business email is linked to your business’s Facebook page and website. You might see significant changes or things that are out of place in one of them, so it’s best to quickly check all online entities.
Do whatever it takes to impede the hacker’s progress, whether via changing passwords or other account settings, such as multifactor authentication. Double check your entire online account and take immediate measures to beef up your email’s security.
#2 Contact help – If the hackers have really gotten in your business email, you will need IT support from a reputable MSP located in Charlotte, Gastonia, or Rock Hill.
The Spectrumwise team will know how to handle the situation and secure your network against further breaches. They will provide strategic solutions to ensure your email is an asset to your company’s success, instead of creating security problems.
#3 Clean up and notify – After you’ve recovered from a BEC, you must identify exactly what went wrong and put solutions in place to prevent it from happening again. With help from an MSP, like Spectrumwise, you get free, no-risk, security assessment to ensure proper security controls are integrated into your technology.
Depending on the scope of the BEC, you may need to notify everyone with private information stored by your business. This is an expensive and lengthy process, which is why one bad email can cause such big problems.
It’s alarming how easily hackers can steal crucial data just by gaining access to email addresses and passwords. Almost everyone stores financial, medical, and other pertinent documents and data in their email accounts, which are vulnerable to cyberthreats.
Luckily, Spectrumwise offers you worry-free spam/email protection solutions which will save you time and reduce the threats facing your business. Call us now and we’ll set your filtering program up and running for you.
Unsure about how to secure your business email? Read our comprehensive blog, Spectrumwise’s Ultimate Guide to Email Security and eliminate your fears of costly security breaches.
