Any of us can fall victim to cyber crime -- the issue costs the U.S. billions of dollars every year. To kick off Cyber Security Month, KMOX talked with Jonathan Tock, an expert in cybersecurity working at SingleWave Technologies in St. Charles.
Tock told KMOX that October is a perfect month to talk about cybersecurity awareness because a lot of scams happen during the holiday season.
"As we get into the Christmas season, we get into the really the busy time of year. Cyber attackers unfortunately take advantage of that," Tock said. "So they take advantage of generosity, but they also take advantage of that fact that more people are online, more people are making online purchases, those sorts of things."
Tock explained there are a lot of ways cyber criminals access our information. But, he said, there are some key things they do -- ransomware attacks and email compromise. They do it by essentially tricking people.
"Unfortunately, people are still the weakest link. They send an email and you click on that email link, or they send a fraudulent account, they say, 'Hey, I need to change my ACH payment for a client,' something like that," he said. "And so people are still the weakest link. Or they do it through a technique called brute forcing, which is just trying username and passwords over and over again. And they pluck these massive lists."
Tock explained that there's a simple motive for cyber criminals: It's the quickest way to get cash. He added that most cyber attacks are actually organized crime.
"They say around 35% of all attacks are organized crime. So organized threat actors that are together actually doing that," he said.
He said it's not just large companies that are subject to these crimes -- it can happen to small businesses too.
"Everyone that has a computer, and I can't stress this enough, any business that's running, is a potential for these threat actors. It's not just enterprises by any means," Tock said.
Listen to more from Jonathan Tock on how to protect yourself and your business from cyber crime:
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