Advanced Tips to Spot Email Threats for Small Business Owners

Businesses often take the privacy and security of email for granted. But if there’s only one thing you take away from this information, it should be that email is the prime target for hackers and data thieves. There are hundreds of threats out there at any moment, and each of them have the potential to steal information, take control of your computer and network, and even damage your brand reputation. Below are 3 of the 13 email threats you should know about.

  1. Blackmail – Obtaining money, goods, or services from an individual through threat of revealing embarrassing, incriminating, or socially damaging information is defined as blackmail. Generally, blackmail is different from other theft crimes because the perpetrator may want power or a favor rather than money, but in the case of email threats, it is usually money the bad guys are after. These are typically the most obvious of the threats. A 3rd party SPAM service and SAT are good counter punches.
  2. Business Email Compromise (BEC) – Generally, BEC is used to describe the many different threats listed here. Sometimes, BEC is used to specify a type of email cybercrime scam in which an attacker targets businesses to defraud the company. Different types of BEC are CEO Fraud, Account Compromise, False Invoice Scheme, Attorney Impersonation and Data Theft. Once again, this is closely related to Spear Phishing, so make sure you have SAT in place.
  3. URL Phishing – URL Phishing attacks are attacks where cyber criminals will obtain sensitive information for malicious use, such as usernames, passwords or banking details. Cybercriminals catch their prey by creating a fake website that appears to be legitimate. SAT helps, as does
    using a DNS proxy service.

Click here to download the 10 other ways you can improve the privacy and security of your emails.