Cybersafe for Business: The Anti-Hack Handbook for SMEs

By Patrick Acheampong, Michael Mudd and Danny Wong

By the time you finish reading this, your business could be a victim of one of the hundreds of cyber attacks that are likely to have occured in businesses just like yours.

Are you ready to protect your business online but don't know where to start?

These days, if you want to stay in business, you pretty much have to be online. From keeping your finances safe from fraudsters on the internet to stopping your business being held to ransom by cybercrooks, Cybersafe For Business gives you examples and practical, actionable advice on cybersecurity and how to keep your business safe online.

The world of cybersecurity tends to be full of impenetrable jargon and solutions that are impractical or too expensive for small businesses.

Cybersafe For Business will help you to demystify the world of cybersecurity and make it easy to protect your online business from increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals.

If you think your business is secure online and don't need this book, you REALLY need it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Oct 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9789887596202

Book preview

Copyright

Copyrighted Material

Copyright © 2021 by Patrick Acheampong

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, write to the publisher at Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the following email address [e-mail]

Visit the author’s website at www.livecybersafe.com

Edition Date - September 2021

ISBN - 978-988-75962-0-2

Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to ensure that the content provided in this book is accurate, legal, and helpful for our readers at publishing time. However, this is not an exhaustive treatment of the subjects. No liability is assumed for losses or damages due to the information provided. You are responsible for your own choices, actions, and results.

Foreword

That we live in an ever more digitised world is immediately apparent if you are a citizen of Western Europe, North America or East Asia/Australasia. Accessing social media, banking, communications and retail shopping – increasingly on a smartphone – are commonplace today.

But this ‘always on’ scenario is not without risk. Today data is a source of wealth for many companies as valuations of the giant tech companies indicate. As in the ‘real’ world, criminals will take advantage whenever they see a chance to make money from stealing or denying access to data.

Nearly 2 billion files containing personal data were leaked in 2017 – and this was only in the US – and is probably under reported. Large companies and governments are addressing this issue through both technical means and training, but what can the individual citizen, or the owner of small and micro business do?

Pat Acheampong has the answer – plenty! An unlocked door or window is a human failure that is an invitation to criminals; similarly people are still the main cause of data theft, denial of use and therefore loss of assets and money.

Protection of your digital life is an important part of protecting yourself, your family and your assets. This clear and concise guide will go a long way to achieving that goal.

Michael Mudd

Asia Policy LLC

Have you ever been scammed on the internet? I have, numerous times.

What is an online Scam? It's a method to cheat you, usually financially, without your conscious consent while you are using different services online.

Scammers can tap into your personal data (Government IDs, Credit Card numbers, Date of Birth, Legal Names, Addresses, Phone Numbers, Usernames and Passwords) either by hacking into leaked information from third party companies, unencrypted channels such as free Wi-Fi in coffee shops or hotels or any internet services where you may have shared private details with. Pretending they know you and/or requesting you to take actions based on something you potentially care about.

I am sure 9 out of 10 of you have been cheated by an unknown source on the internet at least once during your lifetime online, and it's totally not your fault.

We are spending more and more time to stay connected online, and are more dependent on technology for work and personal life. It will continue to increase with the current rate of digital transformation in the new world of Covid-19. Scammers are more active than ever as they know more vulnerable people are getting online and may not be savvy enough to protect themselves on the Internet.

My latest scam experience involved my Uber account getting hacked, and I lost three thousand USD a few years ago. The hacker used my account to simulate fake pick up requests and UberEats orders all around New York. I called Uber support numerous times and requested to suspend my account, all I got back was that they will investigate and could not stop all activities immediately. There was also an issue with the app that I couldn't use my email to reset my password or change my phone number. I couldn't bear seeing fake transactions keep adding to my credit card, so I took the matter in my own hands and canceled the credit card instead. This created a lot of inconvenience to have to redirect all utilities and direct debits against that card.

Recently I heard that a 67 year old lady lost over one million US dollars of her retirement savings due to Covid-19 online scams. The story is too long to be told here, but I am sure you have heard many of these cases through friends, families, or co-workers. The point is, these unfortunate events can happen anywhere and anytime if we are not paying attention or being skeptical before pressing the button.

We don't need high IQ or get a computer science degree to use the Internet safely, but we need to know the basics of cyber security, and learn some of the tricks and tools that could armour us from being attacked or cheated. The Internet is a massive place with billions of people online, and with a lot of opportunities for evil people to do bad things. Just like when you are walking on a busy street or browsing in a night market, you have to ensure your bags are well protected, wallets and cash are secured and in your awareness, as pocket pickers are hidden everywhere. We need to possess knowledge to protect our data online, and configure the right settings with our tools so that the chance for scammers to take advantage of us is mitigated.

This second edition book by Patrick Acheampong is a rare find and a must read for anyone from kids to teenagers, adults, and grandparents to stay safe and confident online in the world of working from home. Don't be intimidated by the misconception that you need to be an expert to secure yourself. This self-guided book is so easy to read, and it will bring many aha moments with an easy checklist to follow for protecting yourself online.

Danny Wong

Financial Professional and Tech Start-Up Entrepreneur

Introduction

Intro

Botnets, hackers, viruses, worms, snoops, trojans, capricious governments. You’ve probably heard of one or all of these at one time or another. If you haven’t, don’t worry. By the time you’ve finished reading this book, you’ll be well equipped to defend yourself against them, and that’s the important thing. They’re all out there trying to invade your privacy, take over your computer, steal your identity and your cash, spy on you, and map your life. This book aims to give you some tools and strategies to fight back against this online assault, and reclaim your safety online while also maintaining your right to privacy.

At a recent World Economic Forum Davos summit, a cyber security roundtable discussion revealed that the biggest banks can now expect up to two billion cyber-attacks a year; retailers, around 200 million.

Recent research from IT consultancy Capgemini found that only 21% of financial services organisations are highly confident they could detect a data breach.

In 2013, confidential documents leaked by Edward Snowden indicated that major email and cloud storage providers like Google, Microsoft, and others were part of the NSA’s top secret surveillance program called PRISM. In 2017, the U.S government passed legislation that allows Internet and telecom companies to share customers’ personal information, including web browsing history, without their consent. It wasn’t just governments though. If that wasn’t enough, there have been numerous reports of companies, including well known ones such as Microsoft, and Google, snooping on their customers themselves.

All these revelations have made Internet privacy a burning issue, with many privacy conscious users now turning to services that claim to be secure from prying eyes.

The first rule of Internet safety, as with most other aspects of life, is to keep it simple and that’s exactly what this book will help you do. There may be far more sophisticated ways of staying safe that the more technical amongst you are familiar with, but this book is designed for the majority out there with basic technical knowledge.

That means that you should be able to implement most if not all of these techniques. It also means that this book is not hundreds of pages long, filled with unnecessary fluff just to pad it out. As well as keeping matters simple, this book also aims to offer solutions that are practical, and affordable for individuals.

These tools are a mix of open source and commercial applications. Woah, stop, open source? Isn’t this supposed to be a guide for non-techies? Before I go any further, I suppose I should let you know what open source means. The good folks at Wikipedia have a clear definition: "Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the code used to create the program is available to the general public for use, or modification from its original design. Open source code is meant to be a collaborative effort, where programmers improve upon the source