5 Types of Phishing Scams and How To Protect Against Them

Phishing scams come in different forms. They do not just use different online methods like pop up ads and fake emails but could also include phone calls. The individuals behind such scams tend to employ fear tactics to force their victims to take the bait.

Phishing can be considered as an online con game. Phishers, or people who run this scam, are tech savvy identity thieves and con artists. They use malicious websites, spam, instant messages, and email messages to trick individuals into giving out sensitive information. Credit card accounts, banking information, passwords, and usernames are just a few of the details that phishers are looking to exploit.

5 Common Phishing Scams and How To Avoid Them

Phishing scams are made to appear as though they come from dependable sources, it’s smart to know the difference between fraudulent and real messages and how to identify a few clues that the message could be a scam. Here’s a list of the five type of phishing scams and how you can avoid them.

Email Phishing Scams

Email phishing scams are fraudulent emails that look like a company or person that’s known to the victim. It tries to illegally accumulate personal or/and financial details from the recipient.

A phishing Florence SC message generally includes at least a single link to a fraudulent website, which is designed to replicate the website of a legitimate business. The message encourages the recipient to give out information that could be used for online financial theft or identity fraud.

Avoiding email phishing scams

• Don’t download attachments or click on links from an unfamiliar email.
• Pay attention and always be vigilant.
• Double check the URL for misspelled web address.

Vishing Scams

Voice or VOIP phishing is just like email phishing but scam involves voice, instead. It’s a phone scam wherein a person is scared or tricked into giving out personal information or valuable financial details to scammers.

Avoiding vishing scams

• Don’t give personal or any confidential information over the phone.
• Don’t call the number the caller provides. Instead, check the company website and make sure that they are running a legitimate business.
• Watch out for misspellings or other red flags.

Tech Support Cold Scams

Scammers call their targets and pretend to be from a well known security company. They will lie and tell you that they detected malware on your computer. They will pretend to give you a solution by asking you to allow them to install a certain kind of remote desktop software. This will let the attacker gain access to your computer to install real malware. Apart from trying to install software on the computer, they will also ask for a fee for the repair service.

Avoiding tech support call scams

• Look up the number of the company that the tech support agent is claiming to be working for.
• Don’t allow remote access to your computer.

Popup Warning Scams

Popups come up when someone is browsing the web and notices a small ad or graphic appear on their screen. Generally, these popups are related to the content that you are viewing and link to a different website with a similar merchandise or content that is related to the content.

Malicious popups could be intrusive, which will make it hard for you to close the ad or graphic. They might show a message that states that the computer is infected with malware and provide a phone number for help with getting rid of the malware. Generally, the cybercriminals create popups appear like they originate from a reliable source in hopes that they will look like a legitimate company.

Avoiding popup scams

• Check the message closely.
• Don’t click on the pop-up.

Fake Search Results Scams

Fraudulent firms tend to use paid search ads for what they refer to as support services to make it look like they are a legitimate and reputable company. These listings may appear on top of a search results page, which is a prime location. The results look like it’s real and they will promise to provide support and deals that are too good to be true. This is one of the common ways they use to trick people into allowing them to “fix” their computer. But when you click on the ad, you end up downloading a malware to your device, which will compromise your computer security.

Avoiding fake search result scams

• Check the url closely.
• Use a secure search service.

What to do if you have been scammed?

If you think that you have been a victim of a phishing scam, here are the things you can do:

• Change the passwords of your accounts.
• Scan for viruses on your computer by running a full system scan.
• Call your bank and report that you may have been a victim of a phishing scam.
• Use a reliable anti-virus program.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. and let our team assess your email security. We also have a range of IT solutions to help boost your cybersecurity.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Florence, SC 29501
843-396-8762
http://manageditservicesflorence.com

Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

3 Cybersecurity Risks Of Remote Work

The numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that about 29% of Americans worked from home before the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile, Buffer said 99% of workers prefer remote work for at least part of their time or if possible, for the rest of their careers.

These days, employees don’t have any other choice but to work from home. They, along with their employers are beginning to see the many different complications involved in remote work Florence SC. There are other bigger challenges than just feeling lonely and less productive. Remote work can put a business at risk. Although some businesses have already invested in good network and cybersecurity solutions, a lot of firms are still unaware of the risks involved in working remotely.

Organizations of all sizes and kinds are dealing with an increase in endpoint security gaps, email based threats, as well as other issues due to the immediate switch to a fully remote workforce. Therefore, it is not crucial to consider both ethical hacker perspectives and security practitioner to remain secure, that is what all of this is about.

4 Signs of Cybersecurity Breach

• New programs appear even if you didn’t install them.
• The computer runs unusually slow.
• Weird popups appear.
• Loss of control of the keyboard or mouse.

If you notice any of these signs, be sure to inform your company’s IT experts so they could mitigate the risk right away.

3 Hazards and Concerns of Remote Work

Home Wi-Fi Security

Compared to working at the office, where IT managers can easily control and monitor the security of each Wi-Fi network, your home network most likely have weaker protocols.  For example, you probably have WEP instead of WPA-2. This lets hackers access the traffic of your network easily.

Phishing Scams

Phishing scams are one of the primary causes of data breaches. Cybercriminals could easily send deceptive emails that look like the real thing. When one of your employees click on the malicious link, the hacker will get access the device of the employer.

Weak Passwords

Hackers can easily crack simple passwords. If you use insecure passwords across different platforms, hackers will easily get unauthorized access to different accounts in a short span of time.

The situation brought about by COVID-19 has triggered a transformation. Remote work brings a new set of challenges and risks. Hackers are prepared for that.

Since remote work is mostly mandatory, businesses should make sure that every device is secure. Employers must discard hardware that are hardware based legacy VPNs and choose cloud agnostic as well as scalable network security options.

Legacy VPNs may leave gaps in your remote security efforts because they are difficult to configure and deploy. Furthermore, they do not have the ability to secure remote access that are policy based to on-premise resources, business applications, and hybrid cloud environments.

Virtual training is also another key element. Companies must perform virtual training for all their team members so that they would be educated on how to deal with a cyber attack and what risks they need to watch out for like malware, suspicious emails, and etc.

SpertanTec Inc. has partnered with Fortinet – the world’s foremost provider of network security – to bring your business the security you need. FortiGate 4400F is the world’s first hyperscale firewall delivers unparalleled performance, scalability and security to help meet escalating business needs.

Call us today at 843-396-8762 for a no obligation review of you network. We works with companies of any size.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Florence, SC 29501
843-396-8762
http://manageditservicesflorence.com


Serving: Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Columbia, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Florence

Lessons Learned From 3 Massive Hospital Cybersecurity Disasters

If there’s one thing that hospitals don’t want to happen in today’s time where risks are everywhere, it’s having the confidential patient health information to fall prey to hackers. That’s why your health facility have to do everything it can to prevent cybersecurity problems.

Hospitals have recently faced various cybersecurity Florence SC threats. The question now is how can your facility fight back? Is there anything you can do to reduce your risks? Listed below are three cases faced by the industry recently and what lessons they have to offer.

Older Systems

There are a few hospitals that are still using older operating systems on their computers. They have to keep these devices off their networks so they can’t connect to the internet.

Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston did this with one of its equipment. However, the health facility encountered some problems when the computer required a firmware update. The technician hired to fix it inadvertently connected the computer to the internet in order to download the update.

It didn’t take too long before different malicious programs were downloaded and the computer became unusable. Cybercriminals got access to the information stored on the machine using these programs – a computer located in China got accesses to 2,000 patient X-rays, which was sold on the black market.

So, the lesson here is to make perfectly sure that all of the computers in your facility is running support and recent version of operating systems and have all the programs required to protect them against spam programs and malware.

Fake Website

In most cases, hackers trick staff s they can obtain access to confidential data. One scheme that made a lot of problems for Massachusetts General had something to do with bonuses for doctors. The scammers made a fake version of the actual payroll portal of the hospital and it looked like the real one. The only notable difference was a few different letters in the web address.

Doctors got an email asking them to log into the payroll portal in order to authorize a potential bonus payment. As expected, many doctors agreed. They logged in using their credentials thinking that they would get the promised cash. However, hackers managed to get the doctor’s confidential information instead. They used it to log into the legitimate payroll portal of the hospital and rerouted the direct deposits for the paycheck of the doctors to different accounts. Then they purchased Amazon gift cards using the money.

Although this scheme targeted the bank accounts of the providers, a savvy hacker may try similar tricks to get electronic health records system user names as well as the passwords.

The lesson here is to always remind your staff to double check the websites to make sure that they are authentic. You should also add in another layer of protection like a security question, before the provider can log into the payroll system – especially when they try to access these systems outside the facility.

Malware on Mobile Devices

Cybercriminals do not just target computer systems – they also install malware on to the mobile devices hoping that they could steal confidential information for accessing confidential accounts.

A nurse, who was on break, downloaded the Angry Birds game on her mobile phone. But she used a Bulgarian site instead of getting the app from a reputable site like Amazon or Google. As a result her phone got infected with a malicious software.

Later she used her mobile phone to check her work email. The software saved her information and sent them to email spammers. They used her compromised account to send spam messages.

No PHI were taken, on the off chance that she discussed patients in her work emails that she sent to her colleagues, the hospital she was working for would be faced with a huge scandal.

The lesson learned here is to always remind your staff to remain cautious whenever they are using their personal devices to access their work email as well as other hospital network system. Always remind them to avoid downloading any program that comes from suspicious websites because they may contain hidden malicious software that may infect the hospital network and compromise the PHI safety.

Call SpartanTec, Inc. and let our team of IT professionals help protect your network against online threats like phishing, malware, spam, and more.

SpartanTec, Inc.
Florence, SC 29501
843-396-8762
http://manageditservicesflorence.com