By Charles kulwa n reg no 42688

Scam and fraud

New technologies may offer countless opportunities for small business, but they also offer cyber criminals many new ways to victimize your business, scam and fraud

New technologies may offer countless opportunities for small business, but they also offer cyber criminals many new ways to victimize your business, scam your customers and hurt your reputation. Business of all should be aware of the most scams perpetrated online.

To protect your business against online scams, be cautions when visiting web links or opening  attachment from unknown senders , make  sure to keep all software updated, and monitor credits cards for unauthorised activity.

Cyber plan action items

Train employees to recognize social engineering

Social engineering, also known as pretesting, is used by many criminal, both online and off, to trick unsuspecting people into giving away their personal information and or installing malicious software onto their computers, device or networks. Social engineering is successful because the bad guys are doing their best to make their work look and sound legitimate, sometimes even helpful, which makes it easier to deceive users

Most offline social engineering occurs over the telephone, but it frequently occurs online, as well. Information gathered from social networks or posted on website can be enough to create a convincing ruse to trick your employee. For example, LinkedIn profile. Face book post and twitter message can allow a criminal to assemble detailed dossier on employees. Teaching people the  risk involved in sharing personal or business details on the internet can help you partner with your staff to prevent both  personal and organization losses.

Many criminal use  social engineering  tactics to get individual to voluntary  install malicious  software such as fake  antivirus , thinking  they are doing something that will help  make  them more secure. Fake antivirus is designed to steal information by mimicking legitimate security software. Users who are tricked into loading malicious programs on their computers may be providing remote control capabilities to an attacker, unwittingly installing software that can steal financial information or simply try to sell them fake security software. 

The malware can also make system modifications which make it difficult to terminate the program. The presence of pop-ups displaying unusual security warnings and asking for credit card or personal information is the most obvious method of identifying a fake infection.

Protest against the online fraud

Online fraud takes on many guise that can impact everyone, including small business and their employees, it is helpful to maintain consistent and predictable online messaging when your customers to prevent other from impersonating your company.

Be sure to never request personal information or account details through email, social networking or other online messages. Let your customers know you will never request this kind of information trough such channels and instruct them to contest personal information or account details through email, social networking or other online messages. Let your customers know you will never request this kind of information trough such channels and instruct them to contact you directly should have any concerns