How To Avoid Drastic Negative Effects IT Support Perth IT Services Perth Cyber Security PerthI know you are really busy and don't have time for this right now. I know it seems like almost daily you're getting bombarded with things you must know or things you must do. I too have felt the same way. Being a business owner or business manager, your responsibilities are endless and sometimes you feel like putting your head in the sand or quitting.

You’re either busy with your family duties, practicing your profession, finding more client work from existing clients, finding new clients or trying to find good employees to help you get the client work done.

Recently, some hacker or scammer targeted us on Facebook with a malicious attempt to get us to give up our username and password for managing our Facebook company page. This was done by tagging our company page along with many others in a post purporting to be from the “Meta Community Standards Team” wanting us to confirm that we are the owner of the account and that we had “24 hours to complete these steps to prevent your account from being permanently disabled”.

Anyone who has ever had to try and deal with Facebook on an issue like this in the past knows it can be like pulling hens teeth, trying to get issues resolved, so there is a good chance they would have caught a lot of people with this post.

What they were really going after however was the Facebook account username and password for the page admin.

Why is this very dangerous?

  • The amount of highly sensitive personal information of yours they would have access to within your Facebook profile that maybe hidden or only accessible to very close friends and family.
  • That highly sensitive information could then be used to further target you in other ways with highly customised malicious emails.
  • They could send malicious scam messages to you all friends, post malicious or scam content to your profile, delete or disable your profile, which could negatively affect your marketing and sales efforts.
  • They would then have full access to your company page and could remove content, post malicious scam content which one of your clients or prospective clients could fall victim to.
  • They could disable or delete your company page which is helping your bring in revenue could have a drastic negative effect to your sales and marketing efforts.
  • They would have full access to any groups you have setup, which if you’re using these to communicate with your clients or prospective clients could be very, very bad. They could post malicious, scam post content in the group which your clients or prospective clients fall victim to or they could just delete or disable the groups.
  • They could disable or delete any ads you may be running which again is helping you bring in revenue, which would have a drastic negative affect to your sales efforts.
  • They could create new ads to run up large bills with Facebook for which you are liable and have a drastic negative effect to your cash flow. If you can’t stop them, they could in theory, send you bankrupt very quickly.
  • They could create malicious or scam ad campaigns that people fall victim to and then they come after you, leaving you to sort out the reputation damage and time suck this creates.

You would then be left trying to resolve this with the real Facebook/Meta help team which could take you days, weeks, months or years to get it resolved, if at all. That won’t cover any reputation damage you or your brand has suffered from what has been done. The most expensive thing however is your lost time.

Now don’t for a second think this just applies to Facebook. It can and does apply to any social media platform such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Google My Business, or any other marketing or sales platform that has access to your social media or clients and prospective clients.

So how do you avoid being in the same situation where you’ve fallen victim to this type of scam and can’t bring in revenue?

These are the top nine signs you (and your employees) should look for in any email, text message, instant message, social post, phone call, that are warning signs or red flags.

  • Be wary of attachments.
  • Be wary of supposed links.
  • Apply context to emails, messages, posts, voicemails, phone calls received at all times.
  • Unusual requests.
  • Is their “business” a new entity or has it been in operation for some time?
  • Does it sound too good to be true?
  • Is there grammatical or spelling errors?
  • Does the sender’s name and address match?
  • Is there an urgent action you need to take?

Naturally, stop take a few deep breaths, count to 10, and ask someone else what they think of the request. If all else fails and you are still unsure of an email, text message, instant message, or phone call, reach out to us and we’d be happy to help with an independent assessment.

If you are a business owner, I’d encourage you get your team trained on how to spot and recognise these scams. I know you’re busy with other priorities and this is not something you enjoy.

Would it be inconsiderate to ask when does it become irresponsible to not invest in your team with the right training and the right services to protect your family’s livelihood?

Want help preventing reputation damage, protecting your family’s livelihood and ensuring you don’t fall victim to scams, phishing emails or cyber-attack? Click here www.myinfotechpartner.com.au/initialconsult/ or give us a call on 08 6244 2556 to schedule a quick initial consultation call today.

My Info Tech Partner is a trusted IT Services and IT Support provider in Perth that specialises in protecting reputations and family’s livelihoods with advanced cyber security services for legal, accounting and financial services firms and is the only one that offers a “Never Pay the Ransom” $10,000 Guarantee.