Scam protection is becoming a necessary part of operating a business. With the introduction of AI and most business processes moving online, there are now more victims than ever for them to reach. Scam protection is necessary for both employees and clients. Safeguards and proactiveness can prove very effective in tackling scam attempts. 

Australia recently introduced laws that made some scam protection and prevention practices mandatory. This was a long time coming after consumers had been robbed for thousands of dollars in the past year. Something that we can all agree on is that scam protection is not a one-person job. It relies on multiple people doing the right thing. That is, the bank sets safeguards to protect its clients (the business and the consumer), the business implements strategies to protect its clients and employees and then the staff and customers are cautious.

This is not a foolproof plan but it sets expectations for each party. Criminals are not going to disappear any time soon. Failing to protect stakeholders against criminals can be detrimental, which is why action is needed. 

Consequences of neglecting scam protection and prevention

In the article above, a consumer shares their experience and their disappointment with both the bank and the business. This is not an emotion that only one person will feel. Companies who fail to put safeguards in place are risking their reputation being damaged and clients developing negative sentiments against them. While the customer may fall for a scam, if it involves a company’s email being compromised, the customer will be less likely to see it coming. Scams are becoming more and more sophisticated every day. The more authentic they look, the harder they are to catch.

Developing internal controls can allow an organisation to detect suspicious activity and stop it before it affects customers and employees. 

Other consequences of poor scam protection could be:

Financial losses

Along with the introduction of new laws, the Australian government also introduced new fines for companies that do not protect client and staff data adequately. Those fines can reach as high as $50 million, which may seem like a high number, but scams are costing Australians nearly $3 billion every year. That number is set to grow. 

Due to a data breach or system compromise, a business may also experience higher costs because it needs to allocate resources to investigate the leak, inform its stakeholders and deal with legal fees and government bodies.

Disrupted operations

Scams are likely to affect business operations as employees are taken over by uncertainty, confusion and disappointment. Certain employees may need to be allocated to other areas to cover for those involved in the investigation. Departments may be limited in operations, productivity will drop, and employees will be likely to look for jobs elsewhere. A drop in deliverables will also affect the customer base as well as other stakeholders like investors. 

Loss of confidential information

Every company has secrets it does not want to share. A data breach aims to acquire those secrets and use them for the criminal’s personal interest. That could mean selling product plans, details and other key factors that make a product unique. Other companies that have acquired the information can then use that to create a lower-quality product at a cheaper price. 

Lack of competitive advantage

As the organisation scrambles to deal with scammers, competitors are continuing operations as normal, meaning that the business is allocating resources to deal with a problem rather than growth. The reputation hit, financial losses and lack of trust from the community will greatly affect the company’s position in the market. 

The impact of a scam can have long-term consequences that will affect an organisation for years. This is why scam protection is necessary.

Scam protection strategies

The first thought should never be ‘It was X’s fault this happened’. The first thought should always be ‘What strategies could have prevented this from happening?’. The blame game is not effective at protecting stakeholders from scammers. To be proactive, companies should: 

  • Have up-to-date software
  • Employ anti-phishing tools 
  • Raise scam awareness 
  • Enable multifactor authentication
  • Make antivirus mandatory
  • Introduce a password policy
  • Save files in the cloud
  • Implement red flag systems

Have up-to-date software

Software companies always update their products with the latest security measures and make them stronger and stronger against scammers. Old software is more likely to be compromised and is weaker. It is advisable to make it mandatory for employees to update all their software or even introduce auto-updates. For customers, it would be ideal to delay the release of new software or new updates until security risks are addressed. This will be annoying but at the end of the day, it is for their benefit. Alternatively, sending them email reminders and tracking their versions can be a great way of encouraging them to update their software. 

scam protection

Employ anti-phishing tools

How many spam emails end up in your inbox? Even a number as small as one per day can be worrying. The best way to combat phishing emails is to implement spam filters and ask employees to report suspicious emails. This will give the IT team an opportunity to check the email themselves and strengthen email shields to protect employees. As we said, scam protection relies on teamwork. 

Raise scam awareness

Scam protection is not just the company’s problem. It is everyone’s problem. It is recommended that you continuously raise awareness against scams and potential attempts among stakeholders. This will keep them alert and remind them to check emails more closely before they click on a link and double-check a system’s security. 

A great way to raise awareness is to share past examples of scam attempts with employees and give them tips on how to spot a vulnerable system or phishing email. Giving employees the right tools to spot scam attempts is more useful than any other strategy as human error is currently the biggest risk. 

Enable multifactor authentication

You can check how effective your multifactor authentication is by the number of complaints you receive from employees about how hard it is to access their accounts. On a serious note, adding multiple steps to verify the identity of the user is quite effective at protecting their account. An authenticator app, messages and codes being sent to their phones, logging them out at the end of the workday or every 2 weeks (depending on the account) can make it harder for scammers to access their information. 

Even if a scammer obtains the password. A warning sent to the employee saying ‘New login detected – Please confirm that this is you by looking at the location and using this code’ will lock out criminals and protect the employee. 

Make antivirus mandatory

Antivirus can protect employees from opening corrupt files, warn them against accessing a phishing link and do system scans on a regular basis. Companies need to choose the right antivirus for their needs and make sure that it is reliable. A lot of antivirus software on the market is only as good as Windows Security. If you choose to invest in an antivirus, ensure that it is even better than that. 

Introduce a password policy

How often do employees change their passwords?  As part of scam protection, employees should be changing their passwords regularly. How often really depends on the nature of the operations they are carrying out. A great way to enforce password changes is to choose software that monitors how long it has been since an individual changed their password. Depending on the interval set, for anything from 30 days to 6 months, the software will send them reminders to change their password, or they will be locked out of the account. 

To gain access, they will then have to call the IT department and identify themselves. The fear of talking to another person will probably be enough motivation for them to change their password. 

Save files in the cloud

Discourage employees from saving business files on their personal devices and prohibit it if those files contain sensitive information. All files should be saved in the cloud so that even if an employee account gets compromised, the data that can be stolen is limited. Also, it prevents the business from losing important files and lowers the possibility of ransom requests. Sensitive data the customers provide should be deleted within 24 hours if possible. Only necessary details should be stored in the cloud. 

Implement red flag systems

Lastly, but extremely important, systems that can raise red flags when suspicious activities are detected are a must for any company. Scam protection is ongoing and time-consuming but people cannot check the health of their cybersecurity 24/7. Having safeguard systems in place can notify the team of large amounts of data or money being moved around, block transactions, flag invoices and take away employee access immediately. Polonious can be integrated with various software that send us alerts when something is not looking right. 

Investigators can then examine the alert and note all their observations and actions in Polonious. This makes it easy to keep track of a case and share the progress of looking into a potential system breach. A key part of scam protection is speed. At Polonious, we allow our customers to finalise their cases faster to increase chances of asset recovery and minimise losses. 

Do you want to know more about our role in helping businesses investigate incidents and establish better scam protection? Book a free demo and talk with one of our friendly experts, who will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Alternatively, if you are looking to know more about scam protection, you can read these articles:

Business scams you need to be aware of

How Ferrari dodged a deepfake scam attempt

Taylor swift fans targeted by scammers: What to do as a company

Types of scams our team came across