In an increasingly connected world, security is an ongoing challenge for companies, engineers, and end-users. Potential threats include malicious apps, phishing scams, data leakage, spyware, and unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Even worse, unsecured devices can malfunction and put people's lives in danger in the case of medical devices.
Just recently, Voler System's President Walt Maclay's email was hacked, and the culprit was able to access his email settings. The attack kept him from seeing replies from phishing emails, which managed to start sending out emails. The email was clever, and some people did not recognize it as fraudulent. Thankfully, his team quickly detected and fixed the issue, limiting the number of fraudulent emails. To prevent future attacks, he started using a two-factor login authentication. We all need to increase our resistance to cyber threats, as they get more sophisticated every year.
This story is just an example of the thousands of automated and manual cyber-attacks happening throughout the world. Just imagine this happening to a casual user. More often than not, these types of attacks are seen all too late when catastrophic damage is done.
JD Supra wrote that ransomware attacks are predicted to occur every 11 seconds in 2021, with a cost of $20 billion. It is reported that 91 percent of cyber-attacks begin with a spear-phishing email, which is instructive to businesses regarding the importance of educating employees to not rely on email and to be highly vigilant about all email traffic, links and attachments.