If you haven’t already heard, there is a rise in business leader identity theft and its costing businesses big time! Cyber criminals are getting creative with their attempts to exploit businesses for a profit. They do their research and impersonate the decision makers. Then, in company-specific jargon, they request a sum of money to be wired. It may sound unbelievable, but businesses fall for it more often than you would think.

We have personally been targetted by an attack of this nature and through good practice of our policies and procedures, we were not victims. It is important to always remain skeptical, especially when money is involved. Several businesses in the Acadiana area have been attacked, it can happen to any of us. Your best defense is to have a solid spam filter in place, and robust policies and procedures. Obviously the spam filter can’t catch everything, so that is where your policies and procedures come into place for weeding out the malicious emails. Having a double authentication ( 2 separate login processes, usually a password and security question) process is a great defense against hackers.

We recommend not opening any emails from unknown sources. If you are curious, look up the sender and see if they are legitimate before opening.

Do not open or download any files, especially .exe files.

If you do not see a lock symbol in the top corner of your email browser. Do not send or open anything important. You should call your email provider and request a secure and encrypted platform.

For more information on how to further protect your network and data, see our Managed Security page, or Contact Us!

If you have already been targeted. Visit the FBI article to see what you can do to report a claim.