It Will Never Happen To Me...

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

The famous last words of too many businesses.

Cybercrime and ransomware are things that, in reality, most of us do not take seriously enough.

BBC Panorama tonight highlights something that affects us all and it is only luck that most of us have not yet been hit.

Here's a link to the BBC news article tied to the program.

Probably worth taking some time to see this (also on iPlayer).

Probably even more worth it to spend a little time securing your business even more - don't let the 'I am just a one-person band and it won't happen to me' mentality kill your business.

 

[fisicx]

Ransomware and cybercrime is endemic. It quite possible you are already compromised but aren’t yet aware (because the crims are busy sucking out your data).

The biggest threat is social engineering. They don’t need to hack into your network, they just need to phish your passwords.

All explained here:

Ex-IDF cyber chief talks Iran, Scattered Spider with The Reg

Interview: Keep It Simple, Stupid

www.theregister.com

 

[Frank the Insurance guy]

The biggest threat is social engineering. They don’t need to hack into your network, they just need to phish your passwords.

Which is why Mutli Factor Authentication is key - password will only get them so far!

I still hear from some companies that say MFA is a pain because their staff all share the same username and password - Definitely a case of "it will never happen to me"....until it does!

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I was aware that Knights Of Old were in trouble I only discovered this morning from the BBC report that they were attacked in this way.

The transport industry is so dependent on Tec now that even I control 80% of movements via software and I never thought that I would get this deep into it
Even the the Chep pallet supply system require all movement of their rented pallets to be reported by app now

 

[fisicx]

Which is why Mutli Factor Authentication is key - password will only get them so far!

Doesn’t really apply if they are logging into server roots and networks.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

Happened to a friend and previous employer of mine recently. By no means a “big” or household name company - turnover about 1.5m in specialist product. We’re chasing a customer in Australia for ages for payment of over 100 grand. No response to emails, no payment. Eventually picked the phone up and asked what was going on.

“No idea what you mean, we’ve paid ages ago to your new bank account?”

“What new bank account?”

“Well we had an email from you that you’d sold the business to an overseas company. We’ve paid it to the account they gave us….in Dubai”

Turns out they’d been intercepting emails for weeks/months, then had sent an email “from the opps director” informing of the sale and change of bank details. The customer had (stupidly) emailed the MD to check it was legit as they were slightly suspicious. You guessed it, they got a reply from “the MD” stating yes it was all legit and please make the payment to the new account.

They’re still fighting to get the money some 6+ months later.