Cyber Security Awareness Month

Theme Two – Is Your Email Secure? 

Email accounts are a common target for cybercriminals.

If they do gain access to your account the consequences can be severe. 

This could result in attackers stealing sensitive information contained in your emails, changing passwords for your other accounts or sending emails “from you.”

Business Email Compromise 

When emails to and from businesses are targeted this is often called Business Email Compromise (BEC).

BEC attacks resulted in an average loss of over $50,600 per successful event in the 2020 – 2021 financial year.

While the term ‘compromise’ is used here, this can include cybercriminals impersonating businesses from fake accounts or using compromised email accounts of employees. 

What can you do if you think your email account has been compromised? 

There are multiple guides by the ACSC for recovering from these kind of attacks, including step-by-step instructions for Gmail and Outlook accounts.

These steps should be similar for other providers, though specifics may differ e.g. how to change the password or review account activity. 

When dealing with work accounts it is important to be aware of company specific cyber security plans or policies that need to be followed.

However, a general guide for dealing with business email compromise can be found here.

Additional ACSC Resources:

• Learn more about business email compromise
• See an example of an email cyber attack

Read our earlier post introducing Cyber Security Awareness Month and theme one – have you been hacked? 

AutumnCare is an aged care software provider based in Western Australia. We specialise in the management of clinical data through industry best practice forms. 
Get in touch with us today if you'd like to find out more about how we can help you.