One of the most common cyber threats you are likely to encounter is phishing. Phishing is a cybercriminal’s attempt to obtain sensitive information by pretending to be a legitimate sender like your school or your professor. If you have a phone number, email address, use social media or browse the internet, chances are that you have already received a phishing message.
Phishing trends
Phishing can take many forms. Remember, a cyber criminal’s main goal is to steal your information. Some of the most common forms of phishing include, smishing (phishing by text) and spear phishing (a hyper targeted phishing message). But a growing trend in phishing is when cyber criminals exploit major events that affect a large number of people at once.
A recent example of this trend was with the Rogers service outage that happened in early July affecting millions of Canadian customers, including businesses. Once service was restored, cyber criminals were quick to send phishing messages pretending to be from Rogers and offered refunds or other similar compensation for the inconveniences caused by the outage if the recipient clicked on a random link.
“In the past two years, 89% of healthcare organizations have experienced a data breach with 41 million patient records affected. Securing your practice is more important than ever to ensure that your patient data and office systems are protected.”
If you believe a message is fraudulent, or if you suspect that you have fallen victim of a fraud or cybercrime, report it immediately to our team.
Knowledge is power
The best way to protect yourself is to arm yourself with knowledge and to be cautious anytime anyone asks you for personal information – no matter how legitimate the sender may appear to be. Try to limit what you share online and be cautious when adding a new friend on social media. The general rule of thumb is, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
BlueBird now offers a Cyber Security Awareness Training program to our clients. Contact our Consulting team today for more information at 416.931.2121 or at consulting@bluebirdinc.com