Because my post about our 2014 pilot of accepting bitcoin on Dell.com is consistently one of our most-visited posts here on Direct2Dell, I know that our readers have a lot of interest in the topic.
That’s why I wanted to bring to your attention today’s news about cryptocurrency cybercrime from Secureworks, our fellow Dell Technologies company.
A targeted “spearfishing” email campaign is attempting to trick financial executives at cryptocurrency firms to open an attachment that will install malware on their computers through the lure of a fake chief financial officer position.
“While many digitally savvy people would presumably know better, such attacks can pay off if they hit just a few distracted recipients,” noted Bloomberg Businessweek.
This particular campaign is targeted at a relatively small group of people within the cryptocurrency industry, so the average bitcoin user shouldn’t be alarmed. However, it’s a good reminder to all of us how important it is not to click on links sent to us from sources we don’t know.
That’s just one of the five tips Angel Grant from RSA, another Dell Technologies company, recently shared with us to avoid finding ourselves on the Cybercrime Shopping list this holiday season.
For businesses to protect against falling victim to this type of phishing and malware distribution campaign, ZDnet noted that Secureworks recommends you conduct training on social engineering, macros in Word documents are disabled and two-factor authentication is implemented across key systems.
Erik Day, vice president and general manager of Small Business Sales at Dell, and Brett Hansen, vice president of endpoint data security and management at Dell, also offer a deeper dive on the top cybersecurity risks for small businesses and how they can keep themselves and their businesses protected.
With the current rise in bitcoin prices and the increased interest that is creating among many who are new to cryptocurrencies, there are likely to be even more attempts at tricking victims than this one that is making headlines today.
That’s why even though our trial of accepting bitcoin on Dell.com ended due to low usage of that payment option, I’m glad our Dell Technologies family of businesses are watching out for the security of our customers big and small.
Be safe out there, and if ever in doubt, don’t click!
