How to Avoid Spam and Scam Across APAC Region

Coronavirus pandemic has a huge impact on various industries all over the world. Some industries are steadily growing whereas some industries are facing severe downfall. In this hard crisis, the cyber criminals are breeding with innovative ideas to spam email and hack the company credentials. APAC has a major vulnerability in its rapidly developing financial sector, economic growth and critical infrastructure. CIOs have to take preventive measures to fight and protect your company against spam.

Here are some of the latest spam threats in APAC region that CIOs need to be aware of:

Ransomware:

Ransomware attacks mostly happen due to the negligence of the baseline security measures and failure on the organization part. It is a type of malicious software that illegally captures your data in the computer to publish or block access by encrypting it. Also they’ll demand the victim to pay a ransom fee to the attacker within a deadline.  If the victim does not pay in time, the data will be gone forever.

Encrypted attacks:

Most of the web traffic is now HTTPS encrypted, because HTTPS ensures that web browsers and apps to websites which needs login credentials stay secure.  But hackers find it easy to hide malware in encrypted web traffic.  HTTPS requires many resources from the target server than the client, so hackers can launch malicious attacks in your computer easily.

Credential Theft:

It is an automated threat where the cybercriminals use bots to find or stuff known usernames and passwords from data breach sources to gain access to the account. They test various combinations of username and passwords until they crack into the account. Once they gain access they illegally takeover your account and commit crime and fraud.

Whaling:

Whaling is a common technique used by spammers to hack your system by mimicking as a real company executive to make you transfer money or send sensitive information including usernames and passwords via email. They use fake domain that looks like normal emails from a high-level executive of the company like CEO or CIO.

Shared Document Phishing:

Shared document phishing is a spamming technique used by hackers where you may receive an e-mail attached with a document. It appears to come from file-sharing site with a malicious link secretly imbedded within it. The link provided in these e-mails will take you to a counterfeit login page that imitates the real login page and will steal your account details.

Here are some technologies that can nail security against such spam threats:

Threat Intelligence Programmes:

 Threat intelligence programme can save CIOs by keeping them updated with the latest security threats including the techniques, vulnerabilities and targets. It also helps to save a lot of time by continuously identifying and monitoring the risk before it becomes a serious issue. It also keeps leaders, stakeholders and users informed about the impact they could have on the business due to such threats.

Artificial Intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence technology can provide effective security solutions to prevent and recover cybercrimes against your organization. AI helps to create a dynamic, real time, global authentication framework that can changes location or computer access automatically allowing the development of existing software to prevent cyber spamming.  With its intelligent code analysis, configuration analysis and activity monitoring, it can detect patterns of malicious behavior in network traffic to predict malicious attacks.

Internet of Things (IoT) Security:

IoT security provides various ways to minimize security issues like email phishing, data theft, privacy breaches, etc.  By encrypting the data between IoT devices, you can protect the privacy of users and enterprise, and prevent IoT data breaches using standard cryptographic algorithms to boost the overall security of user data and privacy.

Robotic Process Automation:

RPA is perfect solution for restricting unauthorized users from accessing your private information. Secure access is essential to protect enterprises from unintentional errors of employees, and unethical spam attacks by cybercriminals. Some software robots will allow only selected people based on your preference with specific credentials to access the corporate system.

Since enterprises are more vulnerable to spam attacks, they need deeper information on how to predict and prevent the damage. Along with the help of these technologies, CIOs can train their employees with knowledge resources and strategies to prevent being a victim of the attack.

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Key Tips to Avoid Cyber Scams:

There is no "one-size-fits-all" solution for defending yourself and your company from cyber scams. When companies and individuals continue to introduce new devices and technologies, they expose themselves to further cyber-attacks. To effectively protect the valuable information that motivates cybercriminals, we must first understand the various types of scams that threaten us.

Phishing Scams

Phishing attacks are all too prevalent in both corporate and personal networks. They occur when a criminal sends a contact posing as someone else in order to extract or access passwords, personal data, or financial details about the targeted individual or confidential information relevant to the organization for which the target works. Furthermore, 59 percent of all active ransomware infections are spread via phishing scams. Here are a few things to keep in mind to help you identify these malicious scams:

Cross Check Contact Names: Use caution if you receive emails from an unknown source that require you to perform an action, such as providing personal information or signing into a website. Most, if not all, businesses would never ask for your details via email or text. When anyone does this, it should be taken as a red flag that they are not who they claim to be. Check for contradictions in their email address or phone number with the individual or organization they claim to be affiliated with.

Misspellings and Poor Grammar: Professional organizations read their messages thoroughly before sending them. Phishing cybercriminals often do not. If you receive a message from a supposedly trustworthy source that contains typos, bad grammar, or incorrect punctuation, it is most likely a scam.

Recognize Aggressive Behavior: If a message's subject matter and vocabulary are too violent, it is most likely a scam. Have you ever got an email in your SPAM folder that said something like, "Urgent! Your account has been overdrawn for X days. "Please contact us IMMEDIATELY"? The goal here is to make you feel uneasy, panic, and take the action that the scammers want you to take. Instead, before making any immediate decisions, consult with the group they claim to represent