It was recently reported in the media that Australian business’ are being targeted with innovative email scams, with a significant rise in the electronic threat known as a “business email compromise” scam. Broadly speaking, this type of fraudulent activity involves scammers approaching your business while impersonating someone your business works with and trusts, in the attempt to get the organisation to send them money. Cyber threats are here to stay, and business’ cannot just ignore them and hope they go away, because falling prey to just one could mean huge financial losses to the organisation, and a potential reduction in stakeholder confidence.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre reported that in the 2019 – 2020 financial year, this scam resulted in losses of over $142 million across the country. While business’ are right to be wary about being targeted, there is some positive news. There is a proven successful method that prevents these types of scams and cyber threats for infiltrating your organisation, and it comes down to knowledge. By educating yourself, your staff, and vested parties, about these kinds of email threats, people are much more likely to know the warning signs of a potential scam, how to identify them, and what to do in the event of receiving suspicious emails, social media messages, and other correspondence that makes you think twice.

The International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Standards (ISMS) provide internationally certified, effective strategies, guidelines, and advice to business’ looking to protect their operations from cyber threats. It helps your business implement an Information Security Management System across its operations, which employs a cohesive approach to protecting business data, by working at developing the three fundamental purposes of business information security: maintaining the confidentiality of the information, preserving the integrity of the information, and ensuring availability of information to relevant and authorised personnel only.

Suspicious emails do not stand a chance against an effective ISMS

An effective ISMS tests for, and identifies, weak spots within your organisations existing information security systems. This is a pro-active approach that is done so your business can ascertain where its potential weak spots are, and then implement protective measures to ensure that they are strengthened, and that information security threats are mitigated. Taking this proactive approach means that your organisation will be able to identify where its weak spots lie, and then do something about it, so that a hacker or other cyber threat is not able to gain unauthorised access to your data.

The ISO 27001 Standards are internationally certified and recognised all over the world as the most effective method for protecting business information, through providing companies with the knowledge needed to be able to identify potential weak spots, recognise business email compromise scams, and take effective preventative measures to ensure that they do not impact the operation. Business’ that implement the ISO 27001 standards will be at an advantage against potential cyber threats, and also stand to:

• Minimise their overall operational costs. The ISO 27001 Standards provide a cohesive ‘all-in-one’ approach to information security. This means that by employing them there is standardisation across the organisation, with all information security measures being conducted in the same systematic fashion, with clear guidance about what to do in the event of an incident. This means that even if your business has to deal with a potential information security threat, potential downtime will be significantly minimised as the company is able to follow clear, simple guidelines about how to handle the matter.
• Educate staff and other relevant parties about how to identify potential information security risks, and what to do in the event of one, which makes the business run in a smoother, more streamlined, manner. Hackers and cyber threats thrive on ignorance. They succeed because people are either unaware of the warning signs or choose to ignore them. These standards will allow your business to develop a clear method of instructing staff about what kinds of potential cyber threats your operations faces, how to identify them, what to do in the event of receiving a suspicious email, and so on. By doing this, your business stands the best chance of protecting its information, reputation, and assets.
• Achieve and uphold the confidence of staff, customers, clients, and trading partners. By implementing these standards your organisation is demonstrating its commitment to going above and beyond to preserve the confidentiality of its data. This works at establishing your organisation as a safe, reputable, trustworthy company to conduct dealings with.

Be in the know on how to protect your Co             

Effective information security systems are something that all business’, no matter their size or scope, should be concerned with. What might initially appear to be a ‘minor’ issue, such as an employee inadvertently responding to a suspicious email, can end up having severe consequences for the company, depending on what information was given out by staff, or accessed by unauthorised users. That is why employers have a responsibility to their staff, their stakeholders, their customers, and even themselves, to do everything within their power to protect their data.

If you have some questions about how an ISMS could be best tailored to your business to strengthen its information security, and prevent those business email compromise scams from getting through, then please give Anitech’s safety system consultants a call today on 1300 802 163. They will be able to talk you through the ins and outs of an ISMS, how it could strengthen your existing systems, and uphold your business’ reputation. What could be safer for your business than that?

Please click here to read more about how preparation is the best defence against cyber threats.