Email Cybercrime Update

This email is not about cars, it is however about speed, quick decisions and good judgment.

Increasingly, we are seeing that cybercrime is becoming a reality for many decision-makers and office workers. Although the old investment scheme emails still arrive every day and our artificial intelligence filters are able to pick them up, the attacks are becoming more subtle and targeted. Whether it’s good news or bad news, the statisticians tell us that your chances of falling victim to cybercrime is now almost 400% greater than any other form of traditional crime and criminal activity.

We are receiving reports from clients that show that the cyber criminals are now building profiles of targets, establishing enough detail about them to know what would trigger them to consider clicking on a link or opening an attachment. It’s no longer random, scams and schemes are now thought out properly, tailored to your business interests and prepared to catch you in a moment of weakness when you only have 60 seconds to decide whether you will trash, action later or respond to an email on the spot.

Just in this last week, one of our clients received an email from one of their customers we interacted with that looked like it came from a Nwanda staff member. The email was only addressed to the finance official, requesting a bank account update. This is now not a case of the press of a button, spam arriving everywhere at the same time, rather an individual crook sitting behind a desk and purposefully pushing out emails with links that will either authorize spyware to be installed on your machine or that will give rights to that person to take over your machine, lock down your database, steal your banking passwords, everything of value in terms of data and more.

There is an outstanding chance that you are currently being profiled for purposes of a cyber attack if you have any valuable information or decision-making power.

Clicking on a link provided by a scammer can even mean that your online identity is used to commit other crimes, leading to years of tragedy and administrative nightmares for you, your clients or employees. Your life as you know it can literally be gone in 60 seconds.

Please be vigilant.

• We have no intention to change our banking details
• We will not insert a link in an email which we expect you to click to verify anything
• We might attach a Microsoft Word, Excel or PDF document. However, we will never send you a zip file or any other file that requires a third-party program to be downloaded in order to view the file.
• We normally make sure that all the accounts from our office originate from denise@nwanda.co.za.

We will never get tired of quickly looking at an email or something suspicious before you open it. Please make sure your team understands how to report similar items.

Stay safe out there!

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied upon as professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your financial adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted. (E&OE)