Gone are the days, where fire, flood and break-ins are the biggest worries you should have threatening your club. We all know the importance of insuring against these physical impacts, but threats from cyber attacks are becoming more comprehensive, more complex, and more difficult to spot.
We’ve already started talking about steps you can take to protect your club in articles here, here and here. And now you know how to protect yourself, we’re going to give you an insight into what the most common threats are, and how you can keep yourself aware of them:
Ransomware:
One of the most well known threats. Ransomware is designed to encrypt your files and data, blocking access until a sum of money is paid. To add pressure, these are often time limited with data deleted after the deadline has elapsed.
Businesses without data backups are particularly vulnerable as they cannot restore their data.
Research shows that Ransomware damages in 2018 cost over $8bn globally, according to Threatmatrix.
Think – what would you do if you lost access to all your data and couldn’t recover it? And what impact would it have on your business?
Social Engineering Type 1:
This form of social engineering is a way for cyber attackers to manipulate the behaviour of you or your staff through deception.
The most common types are:
- Vishing – where contact is made by telephone pretending to be from a reputable institution (such as your bank), to trick you into revealing sensitive information.
- Phishing – where contact is made by email, and the sender tries to get the victim to click on a malicious link.
- Malware & Ransomware – as mentioned above, these can download malicious software such as Trojans or viruses, and can be downloaded from phishing emails, illegal websites and ad banners. These threats sit quietly in the background, and spring into action to capture data when you access a banking website.
- Smishing – one of the latest forms of threat, where contact is made by text message, again encouraging users to click on malicious links.
When these strike, don’t take things at face value. Make sure what your clicking on is legitimate, and don’t reveal any sensitive information unless you’re certain what you’re dealing with is genuine.
Social Engineering Type 2:
A physical threat, where attackers attempt to gain access to buildings, systems or data by exploiting human psychology. Even with the most sophisticated protection technology, processes and policies, a slip of individual concentration can put your business at risk.
From unknown people accessing your building, to found USB sticks containing damaging data, to emails sent mimicking internal staff. And these are just a few threatening scenarios.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is a snapshot of the most common threats. And is something you should be vigilant against. Don’t let opportunistic attackers take advantage of complacency. Be aware. And protect your club.
And if you think you could be better protected, our team can talk you through steps you can take, and how to insure yourself against these threats should the worst happen. So speak to us and make sure you’re club is safe.
