If you want your company to stay clean and clear of cyber attacks, there is one huge thing you need to do. YOU MUST EDUCATE YOUR USERS, your team, so they think before they click or open.
The days of computer viruses may have abated but that doesn’t mean there still aren’t threats coming in via email. Ransomware comes in via malicious software attacked to emails or built into compromised websites. The danger is opening the attachment, or clicking the link. These websites can infect your computer just by visiting the URL.
If you would like to eliminate risks, that could be nearly an impossible task. However, training up your team to recognize the threats, the cheats, the fakes… that will save your business time and a lot of money that can be lost to paying ransoms or recovering data.
In the attached image you will see an email attack. It doesn’t look so dangerous at a glance, but better to be safe than sorry. How can I identify malicious software or a ransomware attack. What do you look for?
- See if the sender and the “reply to” email addresses match. In this case, the reply to address is mail.ru, but the sender is supposedly oracle.com
- Look for things that don’t match domains, email addresses, links to websites that aren’t related to the sender (their .com or domain brand)
- A great option is BEFORE OPENING attachments or clicking links.. Call the sender (on CIRCLE Cloud is best of course) and confirm that they did actually send you something.
- Use email aliases. Don’t use your actual email address to register for newsletters, services, or anything else if you can. Keep you primary address unpublished. For a contact, use an alias that comes into your address. If you look at the address you can ascertain that
Most of what you have to do to secure your company is to educate your team about things such as the above. Of course, the threats may change but the logic does not.Don’t click links or even view remote images is a must.
You can protect your organization from ransomware and malware, but remember the saying, “Youre only as strong as your weakest link”. Keeping everyone in the loop is one of the best ways to avoid loses and keep your focus on your business.