Middle-market business owners and CEOs are extremely concerned about cybercrime, and with good reason.
The threat has never been more urgent. According to the 24th Annual Global CEO Survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, North American CEOs rank cybercrime as the top threat to business growth prospects, likely influenced by the high-visibility cyberattacks of 2020.
A cybercriminal could wreak havoc on your company. Now is the time to protect yourself.
"A lot of business owners think cybercrime will never happen to them, but in reality the chances are quite high that it will," said Cadence Bank Treasury Management Sales Officer Joseph Cascio. "It is critical to be proactive in taking steps to protect your business."
Cybercrime and fraud typically go hand-in-hand, since thieves often use cyberattacks to commit fraudulent activities. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners' (ACFE's) 2020 Report to the Nations, a typical organization loses 5 percent of its revenue to fraud each year.
While large firms detect more incidences of cybercrime than small and mid-sized businesses, according to the ACFE, middle-market businesses are often the most vulnerable to cyberattacks.
"These businesses are in the cybercrime 'sweet spot,'" said Cadence Bank Treasury Management Sales Officer Lori Frady. "They're large enough to have significant corporate bank accounts, but they often don't possess and deploy the latest cybersecurity defenses like large firms do."
Boosting cybersecurity and reducing fraud starts with recognizing the biggest cyberthreats. One of these is business email compromise (BEC), which is similar to email phishing and spear phishing.
In a typical BEC scam, thieves use their knowledge of the company to trick an employee into initiating wire transfers to bank accounts that they think belong to trusted partners, but the money is actually transferred into accounts controlled by the cybercriminal. Once a wire transfer is sent, it can't be reversed, which makes BEC an especially dangerous kind of cyberattack.
Some best practices recommended by Cascio and Frady include:
- Train employees on the basics of computer security.
- Create individual user accounts for each employee.
- Update antivirus/spyware software on a regular basis.
- Lock down your computer hardware.
- Add key-logger detection software to all company computers.
- Use the latest versions of web browsers with pop-up blockers.
- Implement employee awareness training for red flags.
Cadence Bank offers a wide range of solutions designed to help minimize the risk of cybercrime and fraud for middle-market companies:
- Cadence Bank requires multifactor authentication for wire transfers.
- Positive Pay helps combat check fraud by comparing checks presented to the bank for payment to a list of checks your business has actually issued.
- ACH Positive Pay helps protect you from Automated Clearing House fraud by reviewing incoming debits against a list of approved vendors.
- All clients are offered Trusteer Rapport®, a security software application that helps prevent phishing, spear phishing and malware attacks at no additional charge.
For more information, visit www.cadencebank.com or call (713) 871-4192.
