By Scott Aurnou
A simple truth is that the vast majority of electronic hacking attacks are made in the pursuit of money. Electronic banking (aka ‘ebanking’) transactions are particularly attractive to hackers because they offer a fairly direct payoff and, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, CSO Online and security blogger Brian Krebs, among others, small and medium-sized businesses are a frequent target. Cybercriminals use banking ‘crimeware kits’ with names like ZeuS, SpyEye and Citadel to get a hold of your or your company’s log in credentials and passwords, gain immediate access to the funds in its (or your) bank accounts and will often start withdrawing them as soon they have the information. Of course, this begs the question: what can you do to protect yourself?
Keep your software as up to date as possible. The vast majority of malware attacks target flaws or ‘vulnerabilities’ found in older versions of the software on your computer. When software is updated, the flaws that have been discovered are fixed, but… those updates also tip off hackers regarding the existence of the flaws and can be used to attack those users who don’t update their software. For tips on keeping your software up-to-date, click here.
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