MAN IN THE MIDDLE, PHISHING, E-MAIL SPOOFING, these are just a few terms used to describe some of the most common cyber attacks often used to steal user sensitive data, as well as to compromise financial activity of many businesses.

Cyber Security is the array of measures you take to protect yourself from unauthorized access to your information systems and it’s becoming increasingly important today. As year upon year, cyberattacks are occurring at an alarming rate across the globe. Especially illegal transactions, in which scammers manage to infiltrate legitimate email threads between people, and use highly-customised phishing techniques in order to get access to business invoices and transfer any amount of money to their bank account.

Whenever you receive an email from one of your customers, suppliers or creditors, informing you that the bank details for the settlement of future invoices should be changed, it is very important to follow these simple tips, before sending your own money to the wrong person:

NUMBER 1
Always verify the e-mail’s sender by checking its domain name, making sure information in the header are correct. It can happen in fact, to receive an email that may appear to be from a real sender, but in reality it‘s hiding a different e-mail address. The problem here is that many email platforms show the display name over the email address for user friendliness. So when you receive the email, everything looks just fine, but once you click on the Reply button you might notice that domain name has changed. This is a clear example of a particular Phishing techique called Email Spoofing. In many Email Spoofing cases the address is misspelled by just one letter to make it appear legitimate and make the attack even more sneaky, since the filters set up to block a forged email address like this one, just won’t work.

NUMBER 2
Pick up the phone and call the sender yourself to make sure that the banking details have really changed. Use the number in your rolodex, not the one the email provides.

NUMBER 3
Make sure to receive all the new bank details, which must be sent in writing by post on company headed paper, and signed by an appropriate person.

NUMBER 4
Verify the new bank account by checking the International Bank Account Number. Usually the first two letters identify the Country where the account was opened. This can help you to prevent payments fraud.

What you can do now to protect ourself and our business from online fraud?

NUMBER 1
Try to avoid accessing email account on open Wi-Fi networks which are more vulnerable to Man in the Middle attacks. This type of attack allows cyberthieves to intercept the communication between you and the servers of the websites you visit, allowing them to read, insert, and modify messages and data.


NUMBER 2
Don't leak sensitive information about your business on social networks, especially on Linkedin and Facebook, in order to avoid social engineering: one of the most significant contemporary threats to information security. It uses psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away information such: your own email address, or even your company email signature, which can also be taken from the reply e-mail received after filling out the registration form on your website.

NUMBER 3
Don’t open any attachments or click any web link you receive via email unless you’re 100% certain they’re legit. These links in fact lead to fake websites that will try to steal your personal data. To identify a bad link, hover over it with your mouse to and the real web address will show up. According to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, of the 50.000-plus fake login pages monitored, these were the top brands attackers used: PayPal per il 22% | Microsoft per il 19% | Facebook per il 15% | eBay per il 6% e Amazon per il 3%.

NUMBER 4
Use a Password Manager that securely stores passwords and automatically remeber the URL of your login pages. This allows us to be notified whenever you’re trying to log in from an unknown website.

Well, we hope that these tips have been useful and will help you in the future to prevent potential cyber attacks.

• Find out more about our project:
[ Ссылка ]

• Here are some products installed by our technicians:
[ Ссылка ]

JAES is a company specialized in the maintenance of industrial plants with a customer support at 360 degrees, from the technical advice to maintenance, until final delivery of the industrial spare parts.

Linkedin: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]

свернуть