Does any of this sound familiar?
Don’t lend the keys to your business to people standing in front of you in the coffee shop. Secure your business networks with strong passwords and change them regularly. Use comprehensive anti-malware software and don’t open suspicious attachments ending with .exe in emails from people you’ve never heard of.
These are important pieces of advice every business owner has probably heard before. It’s crucial to follow these to ensure the security of your business.
However, protecting your business has become a lot more complicated than simply locking all physical and virtual doors. Fraudsters keep finding new vulnerabilities, causing a loss of $19.4 billion in the US alone, and $172 billion worldwide.
Do you remember the days when all you had to do was set up an anti-malware software on your computer and you could relax, knowing you’ve taken all the necessary steps to protecting your business? After all, you could rely on those little windows popping up regularly, telling you that all was well, or what kind of action to take to ensure security.
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That’s not the case anymore. To fully secure your business, you have to be vigilant at all times. Yes, you still need anti-malware and you can still believe those pop-up windows when they say that their last sweep hasn’t found any suspicious files (provided you have a state-of-the art service with regularly updated malware database).
However, that’s far from enough these days.
Most of the advice regarding business security found online is definitely worth listening to. You can’t skip protecting your wifi network with strong passwords, or keeping your physical keys in secure spots. These are the easiest ways for fraudsters and hackers to get in.
Educating your employees about your company’s security policy is crucial as well. Remember, human error is an important factor when it comes to security breaches.
But since fraudsters are becoming more and more resourceful, you have to up your game as well if you want to ensure the integrity of your business’ vulnerable data.
Up your game how? Glad you asked. Here are two, sometimes overlooked, and often hard-to-detect ways fraudsters can get to your company. Read on and find out how to secure your business against them.
When spoken, this word may remind you of happy times spent sitting in your boat, waiting for your next big catch. And that’s exactly what hackers do with their version of phishing. Except they’re looking for an even bigger catch with far more devastating consequences for your business.
But why is it such a big deal? After all, business owners with some common sense know not to send money to Nigerian princes in exchange for an alleged inheritance worth billions of dollars. Why would anyone give over sensitive financial or other types of data to complete strangers on the internet?
Well, they may not think twice if they thought the email came from a trusted person, like someone high up in management at their own company.
This type of scam, commonly referred to as business email compromise or simply, the CEO fraud, costs businesses $26 billion globally.
But how can someone pretend to be your CEO, or any other person you know when they’re clearly not? Unfortunately, it’s not as difficult as it sounds.
Anybody can create an email account under any given name. Since at first glance, most email clients only display the name of the sender and not their address, you have no reason to suspect that the email is coming from a different address than usual.
And if that’s the case, why should you be worried if your business partner is asking for information they actually need to have?
Here’s where vigilance comes in. Always check the actual address you’re sending sensitive (or any) information to. Those two seconds you spend on checking the sender’s address can save you money and headaches.
That’s great, but at the risk of sounding paranoid, what if your business partners’ account was hacked and fraudsters try to get to you through your partner’s legitimate address?
While definitely harder to spot, vigilance is your best friend in this case as well. With each and every email, ask yourself the question: is what they’re asking reasonable? Does your partner ask for information they should already have? Or that doesn’t concern them at all? Is there a sudden change (e.g. new account number to send payments to, new address) they haven’t warned you about?
If anything at all feels fishy (or phishy), it’s best to call your business partners on the phone to make sure that all is well. It’s better to sound a bit paranoid (remember Joseph Heller’s wise words: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you”), than to lose a ton of money and/or sensitive data.
Another way to fully secure your business is by increasing the security of your payments. But why? Aren’t they already secure?
Traditional institutions like banks, while seemingly solid, are not always up-to-date regarding security. In fact, news reports about yet another security breach at a major bank are, not that uncommon.
Now, we’re not suggesting you run to your bank, close your account, and store all your business’ money under your pillow. For that purpose, banks are still the safest and wisest option. Besides, your money is most at risk when it’s on the move. Transactions are the easiest way for hackers to find a way in.
Nowadays, when it comes to sending and receiving payments, you don’t have to rely on the subpar security policies of banks anymore.
Take Veem, for example. We take the security of our global relationship-based payment network very seriously and take all imaginable steps to ensure that no unauthorized persons can get to your money.
We get in touch with them and make sure that your payment lands in the account of the business you intended it for. This is what makes our network so special: we’ve created a unique community of trusted, verified businesses from all over the world.
Veem uses blockchain technology to move money around the globe. Encryption and decentralized distributed ledgers ensure that nobody can access and tamper with your data and information.
Our dedicated team of customer service representatives is at your disposal, checking the safety of your payments and answering all your questions. In addition, real-time tracking ensures that you always know where your money is and when it will arrive.
Hackers and fraudsters are getting more inventive every day. Don’t give them a chance to get to your business. Use strong passwords, train your employees, control access to sensitive data, and remember to be vigilant at all times, keeping your eyes out for phishing attempts.
And sign up for a Veem account to enjoy easy business payments at the highest possible level of security.
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