Leaving your systems penetrable to hackers could lead to your financial loss, or classified data getting into wrong hands. Cyber criminals are unrelenting in their vicious activities, which is more the reason you should continually protect your corporate systems against a possible breach.
Below are ways you can protect your systems against hacking attempts:
- Use anti-virus, firewall and other tools
- Scan computers and devices regularly to prevent malware infections.
- Keep your personal and business computers up to date
- Pay attention to security alerts, update security patches, conduct periodic systems checks.
- Protect your email accounts and don’t share the passwords.
- Don’t click on attachments or links you aren’t expecting, even if they have innocuous sounding names (invoice, for example). They often contain malware giving access to monitor your email/computer activities.
- Do enable spam filters and block all access to suspicious or blacklisted websites.
- Be vigilant of suspicious or unexpected ‘urgent’ payment requests or changes
- Do look carefully at the sender’s email address. Criminals often create an account with a very similar email address to your business partners so keep your eyes peeled!
- Do spread the word so any colleagues dealing with bank accounts are aware of the scam.
- If you receive an email concerning a change of payment method or bank account, do contact the payment recipient through another channel (phone) to verify this claim. DON’T reply directly to the email.
- DO verify the authenticity of websites before providing any personal or sensitive information.
