Working Safer with: Extra Secure Internet (EVI)

At least half of SMBs experience cybercrime and one in five actually became victims in 2019. We can think of countless examples from network hostages, bad websites that steal login credentials all the time to faulty Tikkies that steal bank data... Surely that won't happen to me! Most risks come from human actions, often unconsciously. We list 7 key steps!

1 Make your colleagues aware of the risks

A first step to working more safely is to inform all colleagues about the risks and increase cyber awareness in the organization. You can do this, for example, by asking colleagues what they do to work safely. Is a virus scanner and spam filter on? Do they look critically at suspicious e-mails? Do the free government online test. And what about your own cyber awareness? Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to check with your IT vendor to see how cybersecurity is currently handled and whether it is adequate.

2 Look critically at email addresses

Cybercriminals are becoming more crafty and less likely to email strange e-mail addresses. A new trend is spearfishing that targets not the entire company but a particular group or individuals personally. Because the e-mail address is often hijacked from a legitimate sender, this tailored fraud is difficult to identify.

3 Check the content of emails

In recent years, the content of e-mails is sometimes indistinguishable from the real thing. The days of African princes promising golden mountains in poor English are long gone. Still, most fraud emails are not yet perfect in terms of language. Be alert to emails with poorly flowing sentences, spelling and grammar errors and English words. Authentic senders never ask you to log in and never ask you to enter your security codes or personal information. These days, threatening emails are also popular. Senders warn you to hack your computer, take quick action or else... And then there are the notifications that accounts have been blocked; ask you to unlock them. Don't fall for it!

4 Check the links in the emails

Check the address of a link in e-mails. You do this by hovering your mouse over it, without clicking of course. Look carefully for strange things in the URL, although this is sometimes very difficult because criminals will pull out all the stops to fool you. In doubt? Then you can use a variety of online tools to verify the address.

5 Take spam filter notifications seriously

Entrepreneurs are also curious people, which is why some still click on emails that have been quarantined. Really don't do that unless you are sure an e-mail has been filtered in error.

6 Don't go looking for free software

Software is not always cheap and some business owners dare to download pirated software. This is very unwise for several reasons. It is criminal, the software can disrupt the network and even visiting such an illegal download site is enough to cause damage.

7 Get unburdened

Entrepreneurs naturally want to do business and not be busy checking emails and websites all the time. That's why 64 percent of business owners would be fine with an external IT party taking on cybersecurity completely. That works a lot more carefree, too, doesn't it! Otherwise, you have to meticulously check every email and website, time you'd rather devote to your customers. How would it be if you could always surf the Internet safely?

Put a fence around unsafe sites....

Extra Secure Internet (EVI) puts a fence around all dangerous websites. That way, from your Internet connection or Wi-Fi, colleagues can no longer get to the fraudulent sites on the Internet. They can still get anywhere, but if a site contains malware or other dangerous content, it will be blocked and you will see a warning page.

Do you also want to do business above all else and not have to worry about cybersecurity? Then ask us To Extra Safe Internet! We'll be happy to help.