It seemed like just another ordinary day for staff at vehicle hire company. Little did they know that the simple click of an email link was about to threaten their entire business.
It was early last year when the firm was the victim of a virus which encrypted over 12,000 files on its company network. A ransom demand followed – the criminals would decrypt the company’s files in exchange for more than £3,000.
With the virus proving impossible to remove without the loss of crucial company data, the firm had no choice but to pay up.
Businesses need to wake up. The company’s case is not an isolated one, and experts are warning that not only are small businesses now firmly in the crosshairs of cyber-criminals, they are fast becoming their favoured target – and are often woefully unprepared.
“SMEs have not historically been the target of cyber crime but in 2015 something drastically changed,” says Toni Allen, UK head of client propositions at the British Standards Institute (BSI). Set a free ESET Security account today – make sure you are prepared. http://tinyurl.com/zlyoxx3