How I protect myself from hacker attacks and fraudulent schemes: Automatic IBAN check for incoming invoices.

Help, I’ve been hacked!

Exciting hacker scenes in Hollywood movies like “Public Enemy No. 1” or “Sneakers – The Silent Ones” thrilled movie fans in an entertaining way. Or do you know the movie “The Net” starring Sandra Bullock, who had to watch her identity being manipulated on the net?

Stories about hacker attacks are usually seen in the movies or, at best, in the press. But credit card fraudsters, Internet scammers, cybercriminals and hackers unfortunately also lurk in real life.

The consequences of a hacker attack are often more significant than mere monetary losses. Damage to reputation, loss of control and economic ruin can cause very serious harm to both individuals and businesses.

Have you ever thought about whether your bank data is safe when you store online? Or at work – what are the dangers when it comes to incoming invoices? What can fraudsters do with your IBAN?

Often companies underestimate the potential consequences of a hacker attack and while a lot of money is invested in security software, too little attention is paid to other risks.

What is hacking actually?

Hacking is the preparation for intercepting data, obtaining it and making tools that serve this purpose. To penetrate systems, hackers use vulnerabilities and programming errors to bypass existing security measures. Once they have penetrated the system, they have the ability to intercept all data, modify it, or delete it.

Identity theft and data theft

One in four Internet users in Germany has already been a victim of data misuse. You may also have had the experience of falling into the trap of a data thief.

Criminality on the Internet can manifest itself in many ways, and the fraudsters act from a wide variety of motives. Whether it is to log on to expensive online portals with a foreign identity, to use paid streaming services or to enrich themselves financially.

Anyone who is careless with their data on the Internet will have a rude awakening at some point, but by then it is often too late.

Especially in the private sector, simple passwords are used for several accounts at the same time because they are easier to remember. This way you serve your data on a silver platter for every hacker, because it’s easy for them to decrypt your data and thus open the door to your money and your life. Social security fraud, credit card fraud, and cybercrime – we are vulnerable in all areas if we are not educated enough and protect ourselves from hacker attacks.

 

How do I protect myself and my money online from hackers and scammers?

No one is one hundred percent protected from having their personal information and access misused. Therefore, secure yourself well to prevent fraudulent attacks as best as possible, because the biggest security gap is yourself.

  • Make sure you use strong passwords (no words, rather letter/number/character combinations).
  • Change them regularly to be safe from fraudsters who could hack your ebay classifieds profile, for example.
  • Always log out of all websites when using public Internet access
  • Do not open attachments from unknown email senders, even from your supposed savings bank or credit union.
  • If you have to enter passwords, credit card numbers or bank details when using online services, be especially attentive
  • Use legal software
  • Update your programs and use antivirus software
  • Use modern payment methods, such as PayPal, giropay, Apple Pay and pay attention to the impressum with trading partners

How do I protect my company from hacker attacks?

Anyone who wants to remain competitive these days joins the digital transformation and thus successfully looks towards the future.

Of course, digitalization also increases the risk of security breaches and fraudulent attacks on systems and data. And where does the damage hurt the most? Yes, exactly – in the wallet. In the case of companies, such losses can run into several figures.

To make sure this doesn’t happen, there are a few important basics you should definitely consider:

  • Take advantage of professional advice to review and optimize your company network.
  • Train and educate your employees
  • Make sure your connection is secure. This means: If the address of a website does not only start with http://www., but with https://www. (i.e. with an s after the http), the connection is secure.
  • Update your browser. Security improves with each update.
  • Use antivirus programs
  • Choose software providers and their products conscientiously and pay attention to security features, certificates, etc. and check their seriousness

Data – the new digital currency

Confidential data is the basis for good customer loyalty and business success. People are considered to be the main risk for corporate IT and it is therefore imperative to comprehensively sensitize and train employees.

Nevertheless, mistakes can happen and, in addition to a comprehensive basic IT protection and security concept, companies should take a close look at where they can close further sources of error and security gaps.

Social networks and mobile and Internet-enabled end devices accompany our private everyday life and the corporate world, and so information technologies are changing at a rapid pace. It is now completely normal for us to pass on and share private and internal data in apps, on portals and in social media channels. Users do this in part without giving much thought to what is actually happening with it.

Therefore, handle all data, whether bank details, passwords, dates of birth, addresses, PIN numbers, etc., sensitively and very conscientiously. ALWAYS handle it sensitively and very conscientiously. Finanztest also warns in its article against sloppy handling of your data.

A hacker could be just one click away from your or your customers’ money.

We would like to pay our incoming invoices securely. What can we do?

A cunning method used by fraudsters is to forge invoices and display them with false IBAN numbers. So it can happen that you dutifully and promptly want to pay your invoice, take the IBAN number from the invoice and transfer your money straight into nirvana.

Do you already use software for digital invoice approval? Is it equipped with an automatic IBAN check, for example?

The IBAN Check is an innovative feature that ensures your money actually goes to the right creditor’s account and not to a fraudster’s account. It automatically compares the IBAN on invoices with the numbers stored in the master data and you are immediately warned if they do not match. The so-called IBAN Checker is provided as a standard function in ShakeSpeare®. After the data has been read out via OCR, this step is performed automatically.

You would like to know more about this topic?

Bitte geben Sie Ihre E-Mail-Adresse ein, damit wir Ihnen die Liste zusenden können. Sie werden keine Werbe-E-Mails erhalten.
Mit Klick auf den Button „Absenden“ werden meine personenbezogenen Daten gemäß der Datenschutzerklärung verarbeitet.