SMEs warned to ‘be extra vigilant’ against Russian hackers

Businesses and individuals alike should be especially vigilant for scams and hacks by Russian vectors at the moment, according to Managing Director of cyber security company, Digital Pathways.

Whilst there is nothing new about the idea of the ‘bad guys’ trying to attack systems by phishing, ransomeware, trojan horse attacks or malware worms, the current situation, due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, may increase the number of cyber-attacks that we are likely to see.

This is especially so for the Banking Industry due to the blocking of Russia from the international online payments banking system, SWIFT.  It is likely that Russia and its allies may look to retaliate, targeting banks, other companies as well as individuals.

“My advice”, says Tankard, “is to be extra vigilant now, especially around passwords protecting client’s personal details. Always check a sender’s URL.  Make sure it is bona fide by hovering over the link and checking it thoroughly.  Be aware that any using the suffix ‘.ru’ is Russian, and definitely, do not open attachments unless you are sure they are safe to do so.  Just hit the delete button!

“If you are unsure about an attachment there are a number of websites such as VirusTotal – https://www.virustotal.com where you can paste in a link or upload a file to be scanned for anything nasty.

“Protect yourself with security software.   For a small annual fee, this software will block any hostile application from launching or will block an unusual outbound connection from a computer or server. Also, any file which is found to be malicious will be quarantined, and any other machine connected to the same network will be alerted for the same file, so any spread is contained immediately.

“But of course, make sure anything you buy are not products of any Russian security company.

“As always, back up everything, regularly”.

It is important that all businesses and individuals are aware of the likely increase in cyber-attacks at the moment and take all necessary steps to stop them.