There are a number of factors that make this new “stay at home” environment a particularly vulnerable one when it comes to cybersecurity.

One of those factors is that thousands of people in the Greater Houston area and throughout the country are working from home for the first time. This is the result of companies trying to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Home networks are not generally as secure as business networks but are now handling all the same types of sensitive data. Home workers also might be cut off from the types of IT security backstops that they have at their office.

Another factor is that cybercriminals are taking advantage of the pandemic. They sent out thousands more phishing campaigns in March alone, many of them using COVID-19 related themes.

In less than a month, phishing attacks rose 667% due to the coronavirus outbreak.

One more danger factor is that many companies that have managed IT services at their office, haven’t expanded their protections to cover remote workers. So, their data is at risk, with varying levels of security being applied personally by employees.

Phishing safety awareness is vital to ensuring your business doesn’t end up with a data breach at any time, but especially now as phishing attacks continue to skyrocket.

Teaching Best Practices for Phishing Awareness 

Phishing attacks come in all forms and employ sophisticated tactics like auto-filling the person’s name or company name in the message. The pandemic has launched a whole new slew of tactics designed to get users to take action.

That action generally takes one the following forms:

• Clicking a link to a site that downloads malware onto the user’s device
• Clicking a link to a spoofed login form designed to steal credentials
• Clicking a link to a spoofed form that steals sensitive info (like SSNs)
• Opening a malware-laden file attachment that infects the user’s device

Phishing emails or text messages with a URL are particularly dangerous. Users tend to trust these more than file attachments. They can also get by the more basic antivirus programs because the email doesn’t contain the malware itself.

Malicious URLs are used in approximately 85% of phishing emails.

Here are the tactics you should employ to educate your employees and help prevent a data breach or malware infection.

Make Users Aware of the Newest Phishing Campaigns

Phishing awareness training from last year didn’t include examples of COVID-19 phishing scams because they hadn’t been created yet. This pandemic is an example of why employees need ongoing cybersecurity training. Without that regular training, they’re going to be looking for older attacks, not newer ones.

Some of the newest COVID-19 related phishing scams are:

• Email from the “HR Department” telling employees to read a new company communicable disease policy
• Email that purports to be from the CDC or WHO providing a map of “outbreak areas in your city”
• Email that gives a link to “safety measures” to take to protect against COVID-19
• Email from the user’s company’s “new I.T. partner” explaining that they are deactivating emails and that the recipient needs to take action to prevent theirs from being turned off
• Many different types of emails offering personal protective equipment, fake cures, or fake vaccines

Teach Phishing Reveal Tricks

Phishing reveal tricks are those actions a person can take when they receive a questionable email that will help them identify whether or not it’s legitimate.

These reveal tricks include:

• Hovering over links without clicking them to show the true URL
• Viewing the header source of a message to see the real sender’s email address
• Looking for any grammatical or spelling errors (no matter how small)
• Double checking email domains to see if they are slightly different versions of a legitimate one (i.e. CDC-gov.net instead of the real CDC.gov)

Give Employees Steps to Take

When employees are working at home, they can easily be confused about what to do if they think they’ve received a phishing email or have clicked on a phishing link.

You can’t assume they’ll follow the office protocol once they begin working remotely. They need to have a policy with steps to follow that covers them while telecommuting.

Tell employees what to do if they suspect a phishing message. Such as, not to take any action, but instead to forward it to your IT team or IT provider.

Have them take the stance of being suspicious of all emails instead of natively trusting them. This change in mentality as they look through their inbox can help prevent them from being fooled as easily.

Give employees instructions to take if they think they’ve accidentally clicked a phishing link. Such as, immediately notifying your IT provider for a virus scan.

Keep Remote Employees Protected with the Right Tools

The right anti-phishing and anti-malware tools can make all the difference in protecting your remote employees. Digital Crisis can help you ensure your at-home workers have the data breach safeguards they need. 

Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 713-965-7200 or reach us online.

Some companies take an “If it’s not broke, don’t replace it” approach to their computers. Even though they may be past the average 5-year mark for replacement, they want to get as many years out of them as possible before having to purchase new ones.

But just because a computer “technically” works, doesn’t mean it’s working the same way it did a few years ago.

As computers age, they naturally get slower and increasingly have issues that need a computer repair. They can also run into security problems due to an outdated operating system or software.

What often ends up happening is that companies pay more due to lost productivity and downtime than they are saving by waiting another year or two to replace that older PC.

Those costs from continuing to run older equipment can add up pretty quickly.

How Much is Lost by Not Replacing an Old Business Computer? 

Often the costs of an older computer can creep up on a business owner and go unnoticed until cumulative financial reports are reviewed. Losses from downtime and productivity typically come in increments that accumulate over time, but that look different on paper than an upfront purchase of a new computer with a cash outlay all at once.

But when you take the time to look at the variety of costs that come from hanging on to a computer for too long, it’s often clear that purchasing a new one saves money and ends up making much better business sense.

Here are some of the ways that an older computer is costing your business money.

Lost Employee Productivity

Lost productivity due to slow computers is estimated at 5.5 days per year per employee. For a company with 25 employees, averaging $25 per hour, that’s approximately $27,500 per year lost from using old technology.

Additionally, when employees are using inadequate technology that slows them down day in and day out, they often get frustrated and morale can suffer. Good employees may end up looking for other opportunities outside your organization because they feel their technology is holding them back.

Unexpected Downtime

Older computers are prone to unexpected downtime, which adds its own additional costs due to business disruption, lost productivity, and the need to stop what you’re doing and figure out how to get the PC back up and running.

The average cost of downtime for a small business due to a crashed application, hardware conflict, or other problem costs $10,000 per hour.

Security Issues

Older computers increasingly have security problems that newer computers don’t have. This can significantly increase the risk of a data breach or malware infection, something that puts many small companies out of business shortly thereafter. 

Security issues that older computers can have include:

• Conflicts when trying to update firmware
• Inability to update to the latest operating system
• Security patches not applying correctly
• Software update problems because their system is no longer supported

The average cost of a data breach is $3.9 million.

Repair Costs Adding Up

If you’re finding that a computer is in the shop often or you’re having to pay for a technician to come out to repair it continually, it’s not long before those repair costs are going to add up to the price of what a new computer would’ve cost.

Often these repairs come out of the blue due to breakdowns and can cost even more than regular maintenance because they’re being done on an emergency basis.

Signs That It’s Time to Replace a Computer 

So, how do you know if you should replace an older business computer? Here are some signs that indicate a need to upgrade.

The PC Is Older Than 5 Years

The average lifespan of a computer is 3-5 years. The range is due to the varying quality. For example, a well-built PC with quality parts, will last closer to 5 years, where a budget PC may need replacement after just 3 years.

It Has Slowed Down & a Tune-Up Won’t Help

If your employee is complaining that their computer has become sluggish, you can try a tune-up, but if it’s an older PC, then that most likely isn’t going to help in the long-term. 

A sluggish computer that is slowing down productivity is telling you it’s time for a replacement.

The Computer Reboots and/or Has Strange Errors

When a hard drive is failing, one of the telltale signs is that it will reboot suddenly and throw up strange error messages. These are warning flags of an impending hard drive crash, which could cause major data loss. You definitely want to upgrade before that happens.

Loud “Processing” Noises

If a computer has become loud, especially when it’s processing (reading/writing information) this can also signal a hard drive failure is on the horizon. Computers drives will typically have moving parts, and when they start to become loud, it’s typically due to the aging of those parts. 

Ensure a Smooth Migration from an Old to New PC

Transitioning from an older computer to a new one doesn’t have to be frustrating. Digital Crisis can help with a smooth data migration so your users have all their data and settings and can hit the ground running on a new PC.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 713-965-7200 or reach us online.