How likely are businesses to experience a cyber scam? ​

Incredibly likely. In fact, it’s a near certainty that every business will eventually experience robocalls, phishing emails, malware, scam landing pages or even chatbots with bad intentions. The fraud industry is (unfortunately) growing. Between May 2018 and July 2019, the FBI reported a 100% increase in identified exposed losses due to business email compromise (BEC), a known form of cyber fraud. And over the last three years, the FBI reported that BEC has resulted in $26.6 billion in losses—and that’s just from one form of fraud.

Additionally, Verizon’s 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report found 40% of successful breaches used email phishing to gain access, while another 30% of successful breaches relied on stolen credentials. Shockingly, most businesses on average can expect to lose 5% of their annual revenue to fraud.

Taking fraud seriously can help stop companies from falling victim to cyber fraud. Learn what the latest schemes are and avoid them with these six fraud prevention tips from Ingram Micro’s security experts, Bill Vogtsberger and Cris Paffrath:
  1. Scammers will sometimes use legitimate-looking email addresses so the email appears to be from within the user’s organization.
  2. Phishing emails can look very similar to the messages sent and  received by co-workers every day.
  3. These emails can also look like they’re from official outside sources, including government agencies, e.g., IRS, FBI, etc.
  4. Users should be suspicious any time an email has links or attachments the sender wants them to click on or download.
  5. Watch out for any email that doesn’t read well or has lots of typos. Phishing emails are often written by people whose first language isn’t English.
  6. Never trust a strange email that requires you to enter credentials or personal information (this could include your banking information or even social security number).
These tips also apply for messaging apps: Facebook Messenger, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype, etc. Anytime users are unsure if an email or IM is legitimate, they should call the person it’s supposedly from and ask or contact their IT department.
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