02 Feb Acuity Mag interview – Ten steps to protect your finance team from cyber crime

Security is no longer just the IT department’s problem. Hackers are now targeting finance teams, and for obvious reasons.

Cyber-attacks are rife among Australian SMEs, which faced a blistering 200,000 ransomware attacks in April and May last year, more than any other country in the world apart from Japan.

Ransomware, fake invoices and email scams can cost an average of $1.9 million a hit for companies with 100 to 500 employees, according to a recent survey of 600 IT decisionmakers by internet security company Webroot.

These are only direct costs and don’t include reputational damage. In February, the Notifiable Data Breach Scheme will force companies to report cyber attacks to their customers and business partners.

Every employee is a potential entry point for a hacker to access internal systems. So what’s the answer? The top three points to take into account when protecting your internal finance team include:

1. Be observant
2. Check social requests
3. Improve your business processes

For the rest of the tips and more information on how to protect your internal finance team read the article here.