Here at Wilson Computers we monitor hundreds of computers to protect our clients against cybercrime attacks. Some of the worst business fraud cases we have investigated originated from an attacker getting access to a user’s mailbox. This article describes how to avoid some of the most common attacks and offers support to victims of business fraud in Northern Ireland with our expert IT Support in Belfast.
Once they’ve compromised the mailbox, they can use it to convince the user, or one of their contacts the transfer large sums of money to a bank account of their choosing. As a result, we’ve seen some businesses lose tens and even hundreds of thousands of pounds from this attack.
The Attack
The most common way an attacker gains access to user’s mailbox is when a user clicks on a link within an email and then enters their credentials on to a web page designed specifically by the attacker to fool their target. Often these emails will suggest there’s an issue with the account and that the user must take urgent action. Consequently, users will often not take the precautions they normally would as they worry they need to act quickly.
Link Checking
A useful way of finding out if an email is genuine or not is to hover over the link within the email and look at the pop-up box showing the domain name. If this domain name doesn’t look official, then the email probably has sinister intentions.
Get In Touch
If you’ve any doubts whatsoever forward the email to your IT support or us here at Wilson Computers and we can advise. You could have the best antivirus in the world but if you do not know what to look out for you can still end up in trouble. Therefore, armed with this knowledge, hopefully you and your business will be less likely to become a victim of small business fraud in Northern Ireland.
During the pandemic and into 2022 we have seen these attacks continue to increase. For our clients we implement MFA or Multi-Factor Authentication. What this does is add an extra layer of verification, such as a text message, to help prevent unauthorised access to mailboxes and prevent subsequent fraud.
This video is less than two minutes long and has captions so you can watch it without sound enabled therefore not disturbing your colleagues.
