Think you know what cybercriminals do once they get inside your IT network?

When you think about cyberattacks, you probably think about stolen data or system crashes – and you wouldn’t be wrong, these definitely happen.

But, did you also know that once hackers are inside your IT network, they can do a lot worse, without you even realising?

Keep scrolling to find out the sorts of things I’m talking about and how you can fight back.

Editing sent invoices

You send an invoice to a client then forget about it and wait for the money to come rolling in. Common practice, right?

But, if you’ve got a hacker in your system they could quite easily decide to change a few rules around and divert your hard earned ‘dosh’ into their account instead.

What can you do about it?

·      For a start, always use encrypted email for sending invoices – this should be second nature to businesses these days.

·      And secondly, make sure to confirm payment details with clients over the phone or by other secure methods.

Taking over employee email accounts

Your employees are sending out emails all the time, but what if a hacker took control of one of your employees email accounts?

They could send out fake payment requests, or phishing emails etc. – the possibilities are actually terrifying when you think about it.

So, how do you stop them?

·      Again, you have to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all email accounts.

·      Then, train your team to spot dodgy requests or suspicious emails.

Quietly watching your data

Hackers don’t always attack straight away. Sometimes, they sneak about in the background just checking out your sensitive information.

This might be customer data, financial reports, or even trade secrets, which they could quite easily sell, or use to blackmail you later.

How can you stop them?

·      Limit who can access sensitive files and regularly review permissions.

·      And secondly, use advanced security tools to flag unusual activity.

Disabling your systems at the worst time

Like I said above, cybercriminals don’t always attack straight away – they often play the long game.

They wait for the worst possible moment like your busiest sales day, before shutting everything down and demanding a ransom.

How do you protect yourself?

·      Back up all your data regularly – just like enabling MFA, this should be second nature for all sorts of reasons.

·      And test your disaster recovery plan, so you’re ready to get back to normal fast.

Creating fake employees or vendors

Don’t make the mistake of thinking hackers are just chancers and a bit thick. These people are often geniuses getting paid a lot of money for the nasty things they do.

And they’ll have no trouble creating fake user accounts to pose as employees or suppliers, which basically allows them to authorise fraudulent payments or gain even deeper access to your systems.

How do you beat them?

·      Regularly audit all user accounts and permissions.

·      And make sure to monitor any unusual activity within your network.

Don’t wait until it’s too late

If you’re worried about cybercriminals hanging around unchecked in your IT network, message me today and I’ll set up a chat, either with myself or one my team of cyber security experts.