Fraudsters flourish in hard times
Jul 31 2008 by Maitland Hyslop, Onyx Group
TIMES are hard in this economic climate, with all of us feeling the pinch as the cost of living rises.
But there is a more sinister force at work as consumers search for ways to make money. The number of online scams has rocketed and fraudsters are capitalising on those already facing financial difficulties.
Popular scams include bogus petrol coupons and spam messages offering fake services to desperate homeowners. There has also been a dramatic increase in fraudsters impersonating victims to take over their bank accounts.
Fraudsters, or “social engineers” as they are known, will employ a variety of tactics, varying in sophistication from the simple theft of card details left carelessly on a piece of paper to installation of key-stroke software on business and personal computers to steal personal details.
Medium and small businesses are generally the worst culprits for underestimating the value of their data, but there are relatively easy ways to prevent breaches of security.
For example, employees must be trained in security procedures and screening is critical for all employees handling sensitive data.
Simple ideas such as disposing of paper waste with cross-cut shredders minimises the huge costs and damage to reputation associated with a breach of security, not to mention potential legal action.
The periphery of an organisation is particularly vulnerable and so employees such as cashiers who have regular external contact should be given at least as much, if not more, training on data security as others.
Similarly, electrical devices that can be removed from the office must be protected. Laptops and PDAs should be encrypted and have controlled access procedures. Radio frequency ID, a sophisticated tracking system, may also be necessary.
But it is not only businesses that are vulnerable: at home similar rules apply. Personal computers should always have anti-virus, anti-phishing, anti-spam software and firewalls.
The rising popularity of social networking sites has made life easy for those looking to steal identities. Onyx recently compared hits on pages with dates of birth listed against those without and found the former to be 20 times higher.
Another simple protection is to turn off computers when not in use. This prevents them being used in “botnets” – large numbers of dormant computers linked to create attack vehicles on big organisations.
The Onyx Group specialises in networks, hosting and security. http://www.onyx-group.net/
Maitland Hyslop is chief operating officer of The Onyx Group
