What, me being hacked? I just own a Cape bookstore, hardware store, landscaping business or restaurant. Hackers want whatever you have and they are aggressively out to get it. You read about the mega businesses that have been attacked. The hackers have, however, been targeting small businesses because they are easy targets. In most cases, you are being infected with malware and are not even aware of it.
How can you defend against it? Be aware when something, anything, seems not to be normal. Your devices might be slowing down. There might be an increased number of suspicious messages. Devices will be uncharacteristically slow and with certain kinds of malicious software, devices might also crash.
Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with malware that can attack at will. Pratik Dholakiya in Technology Trends details five of the most common malwares that are showing up in small businesses.
Mobile Malware. Employees use mobile phones to connect to the network of a business and get access to the customer’s personally identifiable data. Because mobile phones are poorly protected they have become a serious security threat for small businesses. Mobile devices are particularly susceptible to malware since small businesses focus their security resources primarily on PCs and laptops used in the business. Mobile Malware is an umbrella term for versatile kinds of malicious software that can be installed on a mobile device. When you install a new app on your phone, you could accidentally install malware, including banking Trojans, ransomware or adware. Scrolling through your mobile phone, it’s easy to click an infected ad or download a virus over email. A couple of signs a phone is infected with mobile malware include slow performance, overheating or a rapidly draining battery.
Infostealers refer to the kind of malware whose goal is to obtain sensitive data from the database of a business. In cybersecurity, they’re also known as “spyware” because their purpose is to allow hackers to spy on their victims. Trojan viruses seek out where data is stored, gather it and send it to the hacker to steal credentials or databases with personal data. Some spyware captures keystrokes and some strains seek out saved data. What do the hackers want — passwords so they can log into bank accounts, social media and email.
Trojan is another umbrella term for a large number of malware strains that can infect your devices. They are mostly used to install more malware on your devices to steal more data and to gain remote control of the enterprise's devices. Because every year there are more and more malware strains it is virtually impossible to defend against them all.