I am an inherently skeptical person. If you tell me the milk’s expired, I’ll probably have to take a sip before throwing it out. When it comes to IT, though, my skepticism has taken me far, and training your employees to be savvy and skeptical can save your business from a lot of heartbreak.
We’re all familiar with the email from the Middle Eastern Prince who has personally selected you to help him launder money. We laugh about it now, but there were some who fell for these seemingly obvious scams. The problem we face today is that the scams are highly sophisticated and extremely targeted.
Imagine one of your employees receiving an email from you, with your signature, requesting a bank transfer to one of your clients. Now imagine if this type of request is not all that unusual, that it’s a common occurrence in normal business operations. Would your employee just perform the task, or would they take a second to better evaluate the request? This is a real-world example of how cyber criminals are targeting small businesses. Employee training is key in protecting your business. Encourage your employees to be skeptical, especially when it comes to things like company finances, user credentials and other critical data. Your business depends on their distrust.