By now, most people know the basics of protecting yourself from email scams, such as ignoring emails from unknown senders and refusing to open any suspicious-looking attachments. But what about an email that seems to be from a legitimate source like your bank or even a fellow employee? Email scams have evolved and have started to target the receiver of the email. This is why it’s important for business owners and employees to learn how to protect themselves from these types of scams by hiring small business IT support.
Spear Phishing
First, let’s define these scams. Emails that appear to be from a legitimate sender that ask for personal or financial information for the purposes of scamming are known as phishing emails. When these types of emails target specific users by name, location, and other personal information, they are referred to as spear phishing. Small business IT support considers this new face of phishing scams to be due to the rise of available personal information through public means such as social media.
How Does it Work?
Scammers use various techniques to trick people into believing they are a legitimate source. One strategy is changing the ‘reply-to’ address of the email. They will fake the ‘from’ address and when someone replies to the email, they are sent to the illegitimate address. Unless you personally check the ‘to’ field after every email- this could go undetected.
For targets that the scammers deem worthwhile, they will even buy domain names that are extremely similar to the domain of that specific company. For example, a company named ‘Business Capital’ may have their domain name imitated by having an upper case i to replace the lowercase L in ‘capital.’ These small changes often fall under the radar and users will open the email and follow its instructions thinking it is from a legitimate source within the company. Fortunately, small business IT support can train employees how to identify these deceptions.
Another way these scammers attempt to get to you is by sending an email which appears to be from someone you know with a link to a download of an ‘important document.’ When you open the link, it will ask for credentials to Google Mail or Office 365. They then use this information to send malware to your list of contacts and to gain access to other outlets that you used the same password on.
How Do They Get Your Personal Information?
As mentioned earlier, the popularization of social media has greatly expanded a scammer’s ability to find out personal information that could be used against you. They also look to public sources like business directories and compile the all of the information into databases. The databases help the scammers spear phish en masse. Lawyers and accountants are often targets of these attacks as they often have personal details and contact information within the professional directories. It is recommended that these professions hire small business IT support for an extra wall of defense.
There is also the possibility of an inside job being the source of a scam email. For example, a disgruntled employee may have access to accounts and insider information that they use to transfer invoices to their personal bank account rather than the company’s. No matter how scammers go about their ‘work’ it’s up to you to enlist small business IT support and get protected.
Protect Yourself With Small Business IT Support
The easiest and most effective way to guard yourself or your business from these scams is by hiring small business IT support. Expert IT Service providers offer consulting services that educate you on what emails to avoid, how to protect your personal information on social media, what to look for in a fake URL, how to create strong passwords, and how to play it safe. You can also hire an IT provider to be your full-time safeguard against scammers, hackers, and viruses.
Bay Computing & Consulting Services provides all of this and more with unparalleled knowledge and experience. Our IT consulting services provide cutting edge strategies to stay out of harm’s way. We also offer emergency IT support in the event of a worst-case scenario. Contact Bay Computing & Consulting Services today.