Cyber Security Edinburgh

Cyber Security matters because the probability of your business being affected at some point is extremely high. In 2020, 39% of UK businesses were affected by hackers or a cyber attack of some sort. That’s 2 in 5 businesses and the problem is just going to get worse unless all businesses take cyber security seriously.

To understand the problem consider the following which is a typical phishing attack where company A represents one of your suppliers and Company B is your company.

1. A person at Company A who works in the accounts department receives a phishing email advising that their account is about to go on hold unless they revalidate their password. The email looks legitimate and the person does not notice the tell-tale misspelling in the sender’s email address. They have not had any cyber security training and assume that the email is legitimate.
2. After clicking the email link the person at Company A provides their cloud account user name and password and in doing so unwittingly allows an unknown 3rd party to have access to their mailbox. The person is unaware of this and assumes that the problem has been resolved.
3. The 3rd party, also know as a bad actor changes some forwarding rules on the person at company A’s mailbox so that all emails containing the word ‘payment’ or ‘invoice’ in the subject are also forwarded to the 3rd party.
4. Over time the 3rd party learns the patterns of communications and looks for a target to extort. They know exactly how the person at Company A signs emails, what a legitimate invoice looks like and what standard payment methods are.
5. Now things are about to get interesting. Company B take Cyber Security seriously having installed the latest endpoint security software and provided all employees with cyber security policies. The person at Company B that purchases equipment from Company A has just emailed to say that they need to place an urgent order.
6. The unknown third party spots the urgent email as the perfect target and puts their well-rehearsed plan into action. They now have all emails from company B forwarded to them and they update the rules on the mailbox to automatically delete the emails from Company B so that the person at Company A does not know about them.
7. Now the 3rd party responds to Company B and tells them that their account is on hold and they need to make a manual payment if they want to get their order on time.
8. Company B sees the email that appears from the person at company A and it looks normal. They reply back to say that they don’t think there is a credit issue and the 3rd party apologies and says that the finance system is having issues and they can credit back if it turns out that it’s a mistake. The whole communication seems normal with no delays between answers.
9. The person at company B is satisfied and needs the order processed. They forward it to their manager who knows how urgent the order is and asks the accounts person to make the payment as per the invoice which looks exactly like the normal company invoice except for the new bank account details.
10. Company B sends the money (to the 3rd party) who confirms the order will be processed. Two days later the order still has not arrived and the person at Company A is not responding to emails (they are still being deleted and forwarded).
11. Eventually, Company A realises they have a problem and call in Cyber Security experts to investigate. Company B is out of Pocket and never get their money back. They never use Company A again.

The details of this type of attack vary a lot. But the most important point is that Cyber Security protects your business, your employees and your customers. Understanding Cyber Security risks and the impact they can have on your finances and reputation are critically important.