Stay Smart Online Week 2019

Cybercrime is big business – are you safe?

Cybercriminals target businesses of all sizes, stealing information to commit identity theft, fraud and other crimes. The consequences of this can be devastating. Stay Smart Online Week 2019 is focusing on empowering businesses to take simple steps to help protect from cybercrime.

1. Know how to spot email scams

Email scams cost Australian businesses more than $60 million in lost revenue and time in 2018.

Encourage staff to be aware of suspicious emails, including:

  • An email or invoice with new bank account details for a supplier
  • Unexpected emails (e.g. an invoice from a supplier you haven’t dealt with recently or for an unexpected amount)
  • An email asking for urgent payment or threatening serious consequences
  • An email from someone who wouldn’t normally send payment requests
  • An email address that doesn’t look quite right (e.g. spelling errors)

If your staff see any of these signs, call the company using a phone number from the company’s website or Google (not the number listed in the suspicious email).

It is also imperative to have procedures in your business to double-check requests for payment and sensitive information to help protect your business from scams.

2. Create strong password security

60% of hacking-related data breaches involve stolen or compromised credential like passwords.

Weak passwords, like: Password1 or names, are easy for cyber criminals to guess – there’s even software that can guess billions of passwords a second. It’s important not to use the same or very similar passwords across multiple business accounts, such as banking, email and social media. To keep your accounts secure:

  • Create different passwords across all your online accounts. This includes email, payroll, accounting software and admin accounts for your website and social media channels.
  • Create strong passwords. Develop a long passphrase made up of at least four words and at least 13 characters in length.
  • Turn on a second layer of security. This is also known as two-factor authentication. It means you need to provide two things – your password and something else like a code sent to your mobile device, a physical token or a fingerprint – before you can access your accounts.

 

3. Keep business information private

59% of Australian organisations have their business interrupted by a cyber breach every month. Do you know who has access to your business and customer information? It’s important to limit access to only those who need it to do their jobs. This will reduce the risk of accidentally or maliciously releasing confidential information.

Also make sure your staff understand their role in keeping customer and employee information confidential. This includes not disclosing the information online, on social media or to people who don’t need or shouldn’t have it.

Visit the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website- https://www.oaic.gov.au – for more information about how to train your staff on their privacy obligations.

A cyber insurance policy should be part of every successful business’s risk management framework. Cyber insurance is not the first line of defence; it is designed to protect a business when it’s IT security, policies and procedures fail to stop an attack.

Don’t wait until it’s too late – click here to obtain a Cyber Insurance quote online in a matter of minutes.

If you have any further questions regarding Cyber Insurance and how it can protect your business in the event of a data breach, contact CRM Brokers on 1300 880 494.

Partnership with Stay Smart Online

CRM Brokers are proud partners of Stay Smart Online, an Australian Government initiative designed to help everyone understand the risks and simple steps we can take to protect our personal and financial information online.

Stay Smart Online also provide a free Alert Service to explain recent online threats and how they can be managed. Small business users are provided with easy to understand online safety and security information and solutions to help protect their online safety a privacy. Sign Up to the Alert Service: https://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/alert-service

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