Expert Opinion: Gone Phishing…

Amshire IT’s Dave Taylor explains the different ways cybercriminals use phishing to attack businesses both large and small.

It looks like many cyber criminals have gone phishing. And that’s because of the money it can bring in.

Phishing is where you are sent an email or other digital communication pretending to be someone else, perhaps your bank or another service or supplier. Cybercriminals are hoping you’ll click on a link they send you, often directing you to enter your password or credentials, make a payment or complete some other action.

Maybe so they can steal your login info. Or so they can install bad software on your computer to harvest your data or target your contacts.

The frequency of these kinds of attacks is rising fast. And the costs for businesses have quadrupled over the past 6 years.

Big businesses are losing $14.8 million annually, or around $1,500 per employee, to phishing attacks.

To give you an idea of the growth of attacks, that figure was $3.8 million back in 2015.

Whoa.

And it’s not only large businesses that are targeted. The criminals use automated tools (the same sorts of things you might use to send marketing emails to customers, for instance) to target all businesses of all sizes, all the time, with minimal effort.

Could your business afford the time or cash lost to a phishing attack?