I could never say I was a techie. In fact, far from it. I break technology with my ‘unexplained forces’ but I would consider myself ‘technology savvy’. I’m specifically referring to the increase in sophisticated spam and phishing (and vishing) attacks. The days of your long lost Nigerian uncle passing and leaving you $17m USD are still with us but most folk know these are scams. The most recent one being the first ever Nigerian astronaut stuck in space as they didn’t have room to bring him back to earth. So far fetched but I love it. But what we are seeing now are targeted ‘spoofed emails’ from people you think may/could be legitimate.
Just last week I got an email from a local company, addressed to me stating my overdue invoice was attached. I didn’t recognise the company but they had my name/email and it looked pretty legit. It was a ZIP file and I didn’t open it (as I was sure it was nonsense). Sure enough another few came in and they are scams. Probably hoping I open the zip file and launch some horrible executable possibly rendering my PC and network open to attack. If I ‘nearly’ fell for it them loads of our customers will. It’s not just about implementing security technologies such as Symantec’s email and web safeguard systems, it’s also about educating your employees to ensure they understand the dangers of scams and importantly, social engineering.
Just last month a Scottish based company was duped into transferring £18m overseas through a ‘vishing’ scam. FI bet that poor person didn’t get much sleep that night.
As a Symantec Gold Partner we offer a range of endpoint and enterprise security solutions to help protect environments against attack. Whilst vigilance is absolutely key, technology can assist in protecting your environment. Contact us today to see how we can help.
