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// PREDICTIVE INTELLIGENCE // individual scammer was recently extradited to the United States for conducting US $ 6 million of BEC scams .
These scams can affect all organisations , from the very smallest to the very largest . Between 2013 and 2015 , one such scam was responsible for a criminal stealing US $ 100 million from Google and Facebook .
The Latvian fraudster discovered that both companies used the same hardware provider and sent a series of fake invoices , contracts and letters to the companies , which were paid .
Equally vulnerable to these kinds of scams are small businesses , which were struggling with the threats as far back as 2018 , when Lloyds bank data suggested they were affecting as many as half a million SMEs . Since then , the situation is unlikely to have improved , with more and more businesses developing online components and becoming more and more reliant on social media to generate and interact with customers .
Specific challenges for small businesses : the personal meets the professional
The issues faced by small businesses when it comes to social engineering are myriad . The first , as mentioned above , is that the smaller a business , the fewer resources they ’ re likely to be able to assign to cybersecurity concerns . In all likelihood , IT will be managed by non-technical teams , with multiple IT responsibilities and less ability to create a coherent security culture . the business vulnerable to more traditionally ‘ person-to-person ’ scams , such as sextortion or romance scams .
Staying safe
Some key steps for all businesses , but particularly small businesses to take , is to ensure that they have basic cyber hygiene policies in place .
Using multi-factor authentication , ensuring that everyone has undertaken some basic cybersecurity awareness training and working to ensure a separation between personal and business activity online .
It ’ s also important that adequate cyberinsurance is in place . Basic cyber hygiene will reduce the chance of an incident , but nothing can completely protect an organisation from a persistent threat actor or human error ; ensuring that you ’ re covered in the worst case instance is crucial ; for small businesses in particular , cybercrime could be a fatal incident if the appropriate precautions aren ’ t taken . �
Adam Pilton , Cybersecurity Consultant at CyberSmart
Additionally , small businesses are , naturally , intertwined more with the personal lives of those who own or work at them ; less employees working in smaller teams are much more accessible for a campaign of social engineering than multinational companies with hundreds of employees .
The lines between professional and personal are also significantly more likely to be blurred , with owners or employees doing personal business on corporate devices and networks , or business on personal ones . This means a greater chance of a personal phishing attack spilling into the corporate network , leaving
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