Could Your Business Survive A Major Financial Loss? - Part 2

I left the first blog post in this series at the stage where I said I would talk about the human-based manipulation that can lead to massive financial losses in this next installment ...

This week, from a case from the USA, I have read with interest about a different type of ransomware attack. This act involved an internal attack whereby a disgruntled employee literally changed the administrator password and the majority of the user passwords for their workstations.

"Thus locking the entire company out of their systems and unable to operate as a business!"

The culprit then demanded a huge ransom payment in exchange for re-establishing access. Suffice it to say, he now faces a lengthy jail term as the company had called in the FBI and charges have been pressed. The full story can be read here.

In the case of remote hacking, a company may be forced to pay a ransom as the threat actor (hacker), is usually not visible and may not be in the same country, let alone the same city. In this day and age of our cyber world, the criminal is invisible and can sit behind a computer, sending out millions of phishing emails in the hope that mistakes are made by a real person, in the most innocent of settings and cost a business or company thousands, if not millions in money terms and potentially send the business into closure.

In a recent case from the UK, a seasoned Finance director was lured into revealing bank account details and a total of £1.2m ($1.576m) was looted from the account within 20 minutes!

We live in an increasingly volatile digital age and Governments are not thinking of the consequences of moving the whole infrastructure of mankind into the digital world. If we forget the options of 'cash' and physical transactions, we may lose a vital part of the economy.

On top of that, we may lose countless businesses to online fraud, ransomware and other forms of cyber attacks such as falsified shopping transactions and obtaining goods by stolen card details.

We need to stop and re-evaluate our financial infrastructure and how to minimise the risks of phishing attacks, online fraud, and human manipulation leading to huge losses, then decide on a strategy for safeguarding our hard-earned money.

Make sure you are fully aware of how your outsourced IT company or in-house IT personnel handle your business IT infrastructure, passwords and internet access.

And your business will be as safe as it can be from the nasties of our online world.

If you feel inspired to find out more then do call me on 07555 807700 or leave a comment below and I'll be in touch as soon as I can.