Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Phishing scams are one of the most common (and insidious) problems you and your team may encounter. While it may seem simple to avoid a phishing attack, the truth is that many of these schemes are highly sophisticated and are constantly evolving to become more so.

The seamless functionality of email often leads individuals to take it for granted. Whether accessing Outlook or logging into Gmail, the delivery of emails seems effortless. However, the intricate and expansive network of systems essential for email operations often goes unnoticed, and understandably so, given its complexity.

Phishing attacks frequently target sensitive data such as login credentials, financial records, and intellectual property. When these attacks succeed, they can lead to data breaches, resulting in significant financial losses, damage to the organization's reputation, and legal consequences.

Security is a major pain point for businesses of all industries and sizes, and the numbers reflect this. Here are some of the most notable statistics we could find that prove just how important security is to not just your business, but all businesses.

Since 2019, Google has had a feature built into their Chrome browser called Enhanced Safe Browsing. Intended to help prevent phishing attacks, this feature effectively steps in to warn users about links that it deems suspicious. More recently, this feature was added directly to Gmail. Let’s talk about how to enable it… and why you might actually want to think twice about doing so.

Passwords are what separate you from someone else’s private information, their money, their subscriptions, their personal data, their business, and even their livelihood. If you were able to easily crack a password, you’d have access to the wealth and identity of another person. In this blog, we’re going to show you just how to do that.

Amazon Prime subscribers were recently sent a communication from the online marketplace detailing popular scams and what can be done to protect against them. While we have our own set of best practices to share, we thought we would take a closer look at Amazon’s advice to see how it squares up against our own.

If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, chances are you received an email from the online marketplace warning users of scams that take advantage of offerings and brand recognition. We thought it would be interesting to look at the advice shared by this message to see if it matches up with our own recommended best practices.

There are some security issues that businesses are much more likely to experience than others, including the following. Let’s go over how you can protect your organization from these challenges and why it is so important that you take precautions now, before it’s too late.

Quick response codes, or QR codes, are all over the place in today’s business world. They have largely been implemented as a means of providing contactless services throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic business environment, but they have also long been used for things like menus, document access and management, and so on. Even cybercriminals are using QR codes to their advantage, making it harder for all of us to trust them.

While artificial intelligence is being adopted across numerous industries, one that many people may not think of is the cybercrime industry. Fortunately, AI can also be used to stop some forms of cybercrime, such as phishing. Let's talk about how AI might soon be an integral part of your phishing prevention.

Phishing is amongst the most dangerous modern attack vectors, with absolutely no sign of this changing. These attacks are always getting better, more polished, and harder to spot, making them a real nightmare for your business’ cybersecurity. Let’s talk about how the nightmare plays out, and how you can help keep your team alert to such events.

It sincerely seems that every other day features news of another cyberattack, and it isn’t uncommon for the word “ransomware" to be tossed around an awful lot. Let’s take a few moments to go over—or review—what ransomware is, and arguably more importantly, how to handle any you or your team encounters.

The headlines hyping up ransomware as a dangerous threat are not exaggerating. It really is as bad as it seems, although there is often a fair amount of embellished information on what ransomware exactly is and what it does. Let’s take some time to review what ransomware is and how your business can handle it in an appropriate way.

It’s all well and good for us to recommend that you avoid phishing attacks and infected attachments simply by not clicking on the links in emails and other popular vectors of attacks, but the fact of the matter is that you might need to click on one at some point. In this case, it’s best to check the link before clicking it, and we’re here to offer tools to help you do so.

Sometimes, I kind of miss the oh-too-obvious spam emails that were once the norm. You know, the kind that were supposedly from some usurped royal who needed your assistance to reclaim their rightful place on the throne, or from some absurdly attractive individual who seemed to be coming on to you. Sure, at the time it was annoying, but compared to today’s spam…

Well, it was a simpler time.

Imagine your business becomes the target of a ransomware attack. The situation is dire, and you need access to your data. You decide to pay the ransom, even though all security professionals advocate for the opposite. The worst is behind you, you think. This is unfortunately not the case; there are countless other costs that ransomware can bring to the table, and none of them are good. Let’s examine the true cost of ransomware beyond just the ransom.

Phishing is a serious matter, so serious that it is responsible for a quarter of all data breaches. Therefore, you need to consider it a threat to your business, whether you think these attacks are obvious or not. Phishing is a popular tool in the hacker’s arsenal, so you should be prepared to address it with your staff to preserve your business’ future.

Phishing scams are a topic we frequently discuss on this blog. In their simplest form, they are emails or messages sent that are designed to steal from you or gain access to computers or networks. One such scam uses the moniker of the popular IT support company Geek Squad, a subsidiary of Best Buy, to steal from its victims. Here’s how you can avoid falling for these tricks.