Small Town News

Your small business could be in jeopardy

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The Grove Chamber of Commerce held their Small Business University Thursday Feb. 23 with guest speaker Jon Pascoe, Director of Information Security of Arvest Bank. They discussed businesses as targets for cyber-criminals and taught owners how to defend their small business from internet theft.

Cyber-criminals are targeting the financial accounts of owners and employees of small and medium sized businesses, resulting in significant business disruption and substantial monetary losses due to fraudulent transfers from these accounts. Often these funds are not recovered.

To obtain access to financial accounts, cyber-criminals target employees-often senior executives or accounting and Human Resources personnel and business partners and cause the targeted individual to spread malicious software (malware) which in turn steals their personal information and log-in information.

Once the account is compromised, the cyber-crimi-nal is able to electronically steal money from business accounts. In addition to targeting account information, cyber-criminals also seek to gain customer lists and/or proprietary information-often through the spread of mal-ware-that can also cause indirect losses and reputational damage to a business.

Cyber-criminals employ various technological and non-technological methods to manipulate or trick victims into divulging personal or account information. Such techniques may include performing an action such as opening an email attachment, accepting a fake friend request on a social network such as Facebook, or visiting a legitimate, yet compromised, website that installs malware on their computer.

Pascoe provided many ways for business owners to learn how to protect, detect, and respond to these forms of cyber-attacks. By providing this information the Grove Chamber of Commerce hopes the area businesses can stay protected from these forms of crimes. The area small business owners that were unable to attend contact the Grove Chamber of Commerce for the information to keep your business safe from cyber-criminals.



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