Picture this: One of your employees receives an email and they open it. This email is loaded with a virus that automatically picks an email address from their address book and attaches a random Microsoft Word or Excel document from their My Documents folder and sends it somewhere across the world.
Or this: Another staff member browses a website like Yellow Pages, Sensis or BigPond and clicks on a picture or advertisement where they are prompted with a message to ‘scan their computer for security reasons’. Upon clicking yes, they are now infected with a Trojan Horse which installs code that sends passwords, banking details and other private information back to a hacker.
Both of these examples are real and occurred last November right here in Australia. During 2007 over 500,000 new technology threats were released around the world, mostly with malicious intent, to either attack business to break and enter computer networks or to gain personal information for a variety of purposes including credit card theft and social engineering.
There is a new ‘technology landscape’ using the Internet in business. These threats are sophisticated and may have already penetrated your system without your knowledge and can cripple a business in minutes.
Malicious threats are now termed “malware” and include spyware, phishing, adware, viruses, spam, ‘drive by downloads’, botnets, Trojans, key loggers – the list is long and increasing.
Security firm vendor ScanSafe stated in July 2008 that “Web-based malware increased 278 per cent from January to June – this year” – (TechWorld July 18, 2008).
“There is now more malicious code being created worldwide than there is legitimate software”- said Symantec Corporation CEO John Thompson, (RSA Conference, San Francisco April 2008).
Today every business faces technology threats when using the Internet; it doesn’t matter whether they are large or small organisations – every one of them is a target.
If you are frightened by these comments… good, you need to be. Your business could be at great risk simply because you didn’t know about the problem.
But you can do something about it. You can and should use the Internet for business to take advantage of today’s technology – but you need to understand the risks and take precautions.