Many small and medium-sized businesses believe they are too small for hackers to find but the reality is, these businesses are being targeted. Not only that, hackers are using “copycat” emails to infiltrate SMEs. Why? Because it’s easy to do.
Over the years, big business has dedicated a lot of time and money to improve their IT security, making them harder to infiltrate. In the meantime, our dependence on emails has rapidly increased and hackers have become more sophisticated. As a result, it’s now harder for you and your staff to differentiate a legitimate email from a dangerous one.
Amazingly, 92% of all malware across the world is reportedly transferred by email and Australian SMEs are a popular target.
Can you believe this?
While there are firewalls and other software to protect your business emails, hackers are finding new and innovative ways to overcome these blocks.
One way is to send emails outside of normal business hours. These emails contain a link to another site. When originally sent, the link is pointing to a legitimate site so it gets through standard malware security systems. However, within a few hours, the link changes so it’s pointing to a “bad” website by the time you or your staff open your emails the next day.
Big business solution for SMEs
As a result of the growing sophistication of hackers, we’re encouraging our clients to get more proactive with their online security. A program we’re highly recommending is Proofpoint email protection.
Importantly, it uses the same security software big business relies on, but now it’s priced for SMEs.
All emails are pre-filtered before they hit your mail server and then go through multiple levels of security. In the case of the above scenario with a link in an email converting into something malicious, Proofpoint freezes the original email link until you click on it. At that point, it checks whether it’s safe to open and if not, your system and your business are safe.
In other words, it places a wall between what you see and what happens next.
Proofpoint is incredibly powerful
Proofpoint is an incredibly powerful security tool which provides many features to help your business stay safe and operational – no matter what. This article only mentions one of the benefits. For more specific information about Proofpoint and how it could keep your business secure, call the Tresami team on 1300 318 444 or get in touch here.
