Brian Krebs of the Washington Post continues to do a yeoman's job, reporting and investigating the crimes of bank fraud that are being perpetrated against small and medium sized business.
He has learned from the FBI that at least $40 million has been stolen, and most of these crimes were committed during late 2008 and during 2009.
How can you avoid being a victim? In addition to the recommendations I made in my Oct. 22 blog, take a look at the chart in Mr. Kreb's blog, which lists information on victims of this type of fraud.
Once you've gathered this information, here are a few more safeguards.
• Remind your people *not* to open any emails that look at all suspicious, and, of course, don't click on a link inside an email. Instead, open your browser and navigate to the link yourself, by retyping the link. Don't copy it.
• Use Firefox as a browser, wherever possible - and keep it updated. Firefox has recently made extra efforts, beyond any other browser, to insure security.
• While the safest option may be to do banking on a Mac or a PC running Linux, at the very least use a dedicated machine. In other words use this machine for your banking only - no email accounts, or other web surfing at all. Use it just for banking.
• Make sure your banking PC/Mac is used at your place of business, or another safe network - don't take it to an open, public network.
• Note that, of the victimized companies, those who bank with very small institutions, where employees know their customers, were most likely to recover potential losses.
• Since many banks have a policy that requires 48 hour or even 24 hour notification of any unauthorized transfers, once you know your bank's policies, have someone check each day or every other day and act immediately on any suspicious transactions.
The basic strategy is to stay informed, and then act accordingly to protect your business.
Stay safe out there!