HACKERS struggling to infiltrate bigger, tech-savvy and cashed-up businesses are looking to breach the security of the small end of town, a data protection company has warned.
IT security company Tesserent says it has noticed “a strong trend towards attacks on smaller companies, particularly over the past year or two”.
Tesserent spokesman Kurt Hansen said it was vital that small businesses continued to be innovative and expand in the digital economy, but they were often oblivious to the threat of cyber attacks, including ransomware and crypto-lockers.
“As large companies and government departments spend up big improving their online security, hackers are moving to softer targets,’’ Mr Hansen said. “
Hackers are moving down the pyramid.
“Cyber attacks are also growing exponentially, rising 45 per cent in just one year.’’
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s ScamWatch has warned of unscrupulous people targeting small businesses with fake invoices, offers of money, offers of grants or similar tactics to extort money.
Mr Hansen said often busy small businesses without the personnel or skill set to deal with attacks were ripe for the picking.
“Just because a business is smaller, that doesn’t mean it can’t be crippled by a cyber attack, which might cripple their e-commerce abilities and website, stop access to their own data or in some cases, result in the theft of highly sensitive financial and other information about their customers,’’ he said.
Mr Hansen said that while many businesses could not afford to hire an IT expert they could take certain measures to ensure they were not undermined:
EDUCATE staff about what sort of emails should not be opened.
BE alert for phone calls asking for computer access.
DEVELOP an IT security policy that staff can understand and sign up to.
ENSURE firewalls, infrastructure and network security is consistently monitored and updated.
MAKE sure staff are not complacent about security.
Copyright: heraldsun.com.au
