FDIC: Hackers Took More Than $120M In Three Months
Cyber crime scams targeting small businesses cost U.S. companies $25 million in Q3 of 2009, said the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation this week. Since the Zeus trojan is on the loose and is much more prevalent now than 6 months ago, it’s easy to predict that this kind of cyber theft is going to be much more in 2010. You HAVE to have layered defenses to prevent this kind of crime.
David Nelson, an examination specialist with the FDIC said that almost all of the incidents reported to the FDIC were “related to malware on online banking customers’ PCs.” Usually an employee in accounting is ‘social engineered’ into going to malicious site or downloading a Trojan horse program that gives hackers access to their banking passwords. Money is then stolen out of the business account using the Automated Clearing House system that banks use to transmit payments.
The first thing I would do is talk to accounting specifically, and perhaps even dedicate a PC to JUST banking and nothing else. You have to have end-user training in place as well as the usual layers of firewalls, anti-malware, patching, and several others. And make sure they are all updated and that definitions are being downloaded consistently.
(Hat tip: www.wservernews.com)