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Stay Safe

Staff training – key to achieving cyber security

We are all increasingly aware of the dangers posed by bogus emails as vectors for ever more insidious viruses, worms, trojans, ransom-ware and any other type of malware.

A key factor in avoiding “infection” is training your staff how to recognised and deal with these bogus remails. I am not a “techie” but I work in an office full of them, so I have had the opportunity to learn the key identifiers of bogus email. What concerns me is how lack of this knowledge could be putting our clients at risk.

I have been receiving these emails at an alarming frequency. I had a whole series of emails, purporting to come from my email provider and set on a countdown schedule, telling me I was about to lose all my emails, the only way to save myself was to click on the link below; I’ve had emails referring to “the attached purchase order” from people we don’t do business with; I know of someone who received an email apparently from My HMRC saying they couldn’t refund a tax rebate because they didn’t have the credit card details – click on the link below.

Infinite variations on this theme are out there, and they are becoming ever more ingenious in their efforts to fool us into clicking that link or opening that attachment.

There are a few simple rules to reduce the risk: inspect your emails before opening them and delete anything suspicious even before opening it; check the sender’s address; never click on a link unless you are expecting it, and check it by hovering the mouse over it to reveal the actual link address; never open an attachment unless you know and trust the sender; empty your Deleted folder of all suspicious emails straight away.