Cybercrime is a criminal activity done with the use of a computer as a tool to further illegal acts, such as committing fraud, child trafficking and intellectual property, stealing identities, or violating privacy. These crimes can be performed from a distance and are very hard to detect unless you’re an expert in cybercrime. Email and fund transfer frauds occur when people impersonate others, either by hacking their email accounts, or by establishing new, similar-sounding email accounts, or both. Then they trick recipients into wiring funds so that the money will wind up in their hands.
How can we prevent these crimes as individuals or as a part of a business:
1. Secure email accounts
One of the basic ways to prevent cybercrime from happening to you or your business is to secure your email accounts with strong passwords. It would be ideal to provide a combination of special characters, letters, and numbers. Never use a word that can be found in the dictionary, your name, your birthday, or letters that are sequential on your keyboard. If it’s available, use a two-factor authentication, it is another set of passwords aside from your main one, this strengthens the security of any online account and is most commonly used in online banking.
2. Verbal confirmations
If you receive a call for a payment request that is unusual or suspicious from your regular arrangement, confirm it by phone with your account handler or vendor. Never rely on emails alone, every fund transfers or change on transfer instructions should be communicated via call or a conversation with the authorized person or, this is a good practice to do for any business to avoid fraud or errors.
3. Be more knowledgeable
Businesses nowadays have a sophisticated cybersecurity system in place. It should not be a challenge to develop and improve their present cybersecurity, information security, and anti-fraud programs. Banks, on the other hand, are sending lots of emails regarding cybercrime, it will be better if you spend some time to read and study these emails. Attend seminars or read books regarding cybercrime, know who can you ask for help if this ever happens to you.
At the end of the day, it is important to know who you are doing business with, identify your client and business partners, ask where the money is coming from and going to. If it seems suspicious, investigate. A company with an ISO certification is a company that runs on international standards. CRESCO Accounting is an ISO approved company that has only professionals on board. Our IT software and technology partner CRESCOtec complements with us to combats this type of illegal online activities.
Contact us today to get started!
If you need legal advice regarding cybercrime attacks & fraud, here is some helpful information from CRESCO Legal https://crescolegal.com/united-arab-emirates/fraud-cyber-crime/
