One of my husband’s goodhearted employees nearly fell victim to a scam that has been rampant throughout the country. The employee received an email from a senior staff member (or so it seemed) asking if he was in the office. It was early on a Friday morning, before many people had arrived. The employee, never wanting to disappoint, responded yes. The alleged senior staff member then asked the employee for help – asking if he could go to a nearby drug store, purchase several gift cards and then send him the redemption codes. The employee got as far as purchasing $500 worth of gift cards before he took a moment to think about what he was doing. Just prior to sending the codes, he picked up the phone to confirm with the senior staff member…

While the employee ultimately realized he might be the subject of a scam, too many people take action without first verifying. By our nature, people are helpful. We hold the door for others and offer to send money to someone in need. Scammers are all too happy to take advantage of our good nature. Sadly, in this day and age, we need to take that extra minute or two (or three) to pick up the phone and verify. Being helpful is wonderful – but being smart is self-preservation.

And, for employers, this type of scam is best combated by proper and regular cyber training for your personnel. More than half of reported breaches (and some in the headlines), begin with employees responding to this type of phishing email, a spoofed account or a suspect link. Be smart and be secure.

As the target of a corporate cyber breach, are you a victim – along with your customers and personnel – or are you a “willing” accomplice to the crime?

This week, a U.K. bank was fined in excess of $21 million dollars for failing to protect its systems and customers against a “foreseeable” cyber-attack that occurred in 2016.

The bad actors exploited deficiencies in the design of the bank’s debit cards. In the year preceding the attack, Visa, Inc. had issued a warning to lenders, including this bank, about this weakness. As such, the regulator found that the bank was on notice of the potential for the attack, and nevertheless failed to take action to prevent its occurrence.

Those of you based in the U.S. reading this post may say, “well that is the U.K.”…

However, earlier this year, a Federal District Court in North Carolina found that a U.S.-based company that failed to train its personnel about a “known” phishing scam had acted “intentionally” when one of its (untrained) employees released the company’s employees’ W-2s in response to such a phish.  In this case, the IRS had issued warnings in prior years about this type of scam.  However, the U.S. company did not train its personnel to be aware of such an attack, nor did they have protocols in place to guide personnel in such instances.  In finding that the company acted “intentionally,” the court ruled that the company, in effect, willfully exposed the social security numbers of its personnel.  Under North Carolina law, having been found to have acted intentionally, the company was subject to treble damages.

Given these rulings, and with more and more states adopting proactive legislation requiring businesses to have written policies, procedures and protocols in place to prevent, detect and mitigate cyber-attacks, companies may not be able to argue that they were “innocent” victims, too.

Having written policies and procedures, supporting technology and educated personnel will go a long way toward protecting the company, its customers and its personnel;  and when (not if) an attack occurs, the company will be prepared to respond effectively.

Many businesses and individuals dispose of aging equipment, laptops, desktops, servers and more by monetizing those items. Disposal may be by sale at auction or donation to charity. Some companies now lease equipment, and turn over such items at lease end. However, many businesses and individuals forget – or do not realize – that their equipment used to process data store the data. This could include such items as computers, fax machines, photocopiers, cellphones or other similar devices. When you return, sell or donate that equipment, you may be unwittingly causing a data breach.

NCIX, a recently failed Canadian company, did just that. The company, strapped for cash, sold off servers without first wiping the data. The devices in question stored data in plain text and contained decades of customer information, including names, addresses and payment information.

Whether you are returning leased equipment or selling or donating old items, and even if the data is encrypted, always have the data wiped from the device. For leased equipment, do not assume the leasing company will do this for you absent an express contractual undertaking to do so.