Cyber Criminals Attack SMBs Using Online Banking Services

The stupendous rise in cyber thefts in small companies, school districts, non-profit organizations, churches and governments has raised widespread alarm. Thus, the American Bankers Association along with FBI is suggesting SMBs (small-and-medium size businesses), which use Internet to carry out their financial transactions, to perform the activity from a separate computer designated only for Internet banking.

The security officials state that cyber criminals gangs disseminate innumerable banking trojans across the Internet. These malware help the criminals to secretly gain control of people's online accounts and then manipulate them. A separate computer on which no Web-browsing or e-mail activities are done has much lower chances to be attacked by a banking Trojan.

As per a common trend, personalized attacks against owners of SMBs are widely executed for grabbing their Internet banking credentials. These attacks are excessively damaging as banks don't take the responsibility of the businesses' monetary losses as they do with individual customers in case of identity thefts.

During October 2009, the FBI calculated that SMBs had lost around $40 Million because of cyber crimes since 2004.

The miscreants are employing increasing number of methods to have banking trojans installed on small companies' computers. Avivah Litan, Banking Security Analyst at Gartner (a technology consulting company), states that criminals attack places where there is easy money, as reported by USA Today on December 31, 2009. Litan added that the criminals easily attacked small businesses because their controls had become outdated, and advanced software could normally extract the money.

The SMBs don't have enough safeguards even against ordinary security threats. According to a new poll by CDW Corporation (a company that resells computer software, hardware and supplies), 20% of SMBs is without antivirus programs, 71% are without any form of Web-filtering software, and 37% are without any anti-spam filter. Additionally, 61% of SMBs are without any implemented policy for proper downloading of applications and software.

The security experts state that to avoid Internet threats, SMBs need to invest more money and time into their IT security programs. Alternatively, they can also take help from external sources for managerial and advisory functions of their IT security.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

» SPAMfighter News - 1/7/2010