data theft

IT Tips for Today’s Tax Professionals

April 2, 2019 by securewebsite

With tax day just two weeks away, many people may have their minds set on getting their taxes filed fast if they haven’t done so already. Tax professionals always find themselves swamped from February to May with businesses and individuals alike trying to finish up their taxes for the previous year. As a result, information technology (IT) may not be on the top of your mind as a tax professional but it should be.

With all of the personally identifiable information (PII) tax professionals work with on a daily basis from birthdates to social security numbers, IT security is a must to prevent breaches and data loss. Here are some top tips to keep your tax business and your clients safe.

Don’t Get Phished

Phishing emails are one of the most common ways hackers target businesses through email according to the Internet Security Threat Report Volume 24 by Symantec. “Employees of smaller organizations were more likely to be hit by email threats- including spam, phishing, and email malware- than those in large organizations,” according to the report.

Learn how to recognize phishing emails and train your employees to do so as well. Emails from unknown sources, especially those coming from someone pretending to be the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), e-Services, a tax software provider, or cloud storage provider should be deleted. Be sure to never open any link or attachments in suspicious emails as this is how the bad guys access your email and network. Note that the IRS never initiates initial contact through email with tax professionals regarding returns, refunds, requests for PII or other sensitive data.

The Symantec report does offer some good news in that “Phishing levels declined, dropping from 1 in 2,995 emails in 2017, to 1 in 3,207 emails in 2018.” This may be the result of better training and anti-phishing software. Be sure to keep your employees trained so your business isn’t phished.

Draft Your Data Plan

Every business, especially those in industries that are highly regulated or those that are often targeted due to the sensitive information they handle, should create a data security plan. When it comes to tax professionals, your security plan should use IRS Publication 4557, which addresses the proper safeguarding of taxpayer data. You will also want to look at Small Business Information Security- The Fundamentals developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a non-regulatory federal agency charged with promoting U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness.

These standards outlined in these publications will help you develop a data security plan that meets rigorous standards and the individual needs of your tax business. If you need assistance developing a data security plan, third-party vendors such as ORAM Corporate Advisors can handle this for you through an IT assessment.

Security Software

You’ll need to review the internal controls your business has in place to protect its data. Start with installing anti-malware and anti-virus software if you haven’t already done so, or if you have, you may want to update the software you have in place. This will need to be done on all of the devices used for business from laptops and desktops to routers and tablets. Don’t forget about your phones as well. Be sure to keep your security software set to automatically update as software companies push out updates and patches regularly.

Powerhouse Passwords

Be sure to use passwords that are powerful. Use a mix of at least 8 or more upper and lowercase characters, numerals, and signs in your passwords. Ensure your passwords are strong and unique for each different login you have. While this might seem overwhelming, there are a number of password managers available that can help you keep them all straight.

You will also want to password protect every wireless device in case of loss or theft. Use a phrase or words that are easily remembered and periodically change your passwords. Finally, never use old passwords and use multi-factor authentication wherever possible. Be sure to train your employees on these password best practices as well.

A Prescription for Encryption

In addition to strong password protections, one of the best ways to secure data in your tax business is to encrypt sensitive files and/or emails. In a worldwide survey of businesses by Statista, encryption was “employed extensively” by 63 percent of enterprises in 2018. Another 24 percent of businesses survey by Statista said encryption was partially deployed in their company databases. There are many types of encryption software to choose from. At ORAM, we recommend Mimecast for email encryption. For full-drive encryption, ORAM recommends eSet Endpoint Encryption so you can encrypt your sensitive files when they are in storage.

Back It Up

Be sure to back up all of your sensitive data to protect your business in the event of a disaster scenario. Ransomware is rampant, viruses can infect your network, and natural disasters such as fires and hurricanes can wipe out your data. To ensure that you always have access, have a backup plan in place and know exactly what you are backing up and to where. See ORAM’s blog on “The Biggest Backup Mistakes Businesses Make” to learn what to avoid.

Proper Disposal

Make sure that when you dispose of data, it’s being done so properly. Whether you are super shredding hard copies of data or replacing old computers, be cognizant of how you do it. All of your old computer hard drives should be wiped clean or destroyed before you dispose of them. This is also true of printers which can also store sensitive data.

Limit Access

Limit access to taxpayer data to only those employees who require it to fulfill their job duties. This is meant to protect both your client data as well as your own business. While many breaches happen due to outside sources, internal threats are still an issue in organizations around the world.

As a matter of fact, an online article from Security Intelligence reported that insider threats account for nearly 75 percent of security breaches. Disgruntled employees, those recently let go, and others may be ready to turn on your business to make a buck or out of spite. In the IT world, this limited access is known as the practice of least privilege. Be sure to employ it to protect your business from insider threats.

Check Your IRS e-Service Account

Be sure to check in on your businesses IRS e-Service account on a weekly basis. This allows you to ensure that the number of returns your business has filed with its EFIN is correct. If there are any discrepancies with the number of returns filed, contact the IRS immediately. Additionally, you will want to report any data theft or loss immediately. You will need to determine the appropriate IRS Stakeholder Liaison with whom to report the loss.

Keep In Contact

Stay in contact with the IRS and keep abreast of new developments though a subscription to the e-News for Tax Professionals, the latest national and local IRS news. QuickAlerts sends important messages, within seconds, to keep you up to date on the events that affect authorized IRS e-file providers like you. You can also keep in contact with the IRS through various social media as an authorized IRS e-file provider.

The IRS also has a Data Security Resource Guide for Tax Professionals that details the signs of data theft, teaches you how to report data theft to the IRS, and provides a number of data theft links. We recommend all tax professionals download the guide and read through it so you are prepared for a worst case scenario. This way you won’t be struggling for resources when you’re already under stress.

If you need more assistance securing the data of your tax business, please contact ORAM today at (617) 933-5060 or visit us online. We are happy to schedule a free initial consultation to get your tax business on the road to better security fast.

The Dark Web: What it is, how it impacts your organization, and ways to protect your business

October 19, 2018 by securewebsite

The Dark Web sounds like the name of Hollywood’s latest horror movie. In reality, it is something much scarier. It can rob your business, negatively impact employees, and shutter companies.
While you can’t see it, the Dark Web is a huge threat to the stability and continuity of business. Knowing what it is and why it is threatening is the first step to protecting what you have built with hard work and dedication. Here is what you need to know about the Dark Web, why it’s so dangerous, and ways to best protect your organization.

What is the Dark Web?
The Dark Web is the shady side of the World Wide Web. Digital communities on the Dark Web are accessible with special software that allows users and those operating dark websites to remain anonymous and untraceable. While it offers some legitimate uses, it is estimated that more than 50 percent of all sites on the Dark Web are employed in criminal activities. This can mean everything from the theft of digital credentials to their disclosure through sale.

Your Credentials
Digital credentials such as usernames and passwords keep you and your employees connected to critical business applications, email, and other online services. Criminals know that if they can get those credentials, they can access everything from your business’s list of clients to your trade secrets and funds. This means digital credentials are some of the most valuable pieces of information floating around the Dark Web.

Credential Theft
Criminals steal credentials from login information for social media platforms such as Facebook to dates of birth and credit card numbers. The problem is that many individuals and companies often fail to realize their credentials have been stolen until it’s too late.

In more than 75 percent of cases, it is law enforcement or another third-party that notifies a victim that something is amiss. By then, it’s usually too late to prevent data theft or a serious breach that could stop your company in its tracks, lead to a loss of customers, or even bankrupt your business.

Human Resources and Payroll
Your business relies on its human resources and payroll department(s) but these valuable individuals are some of the biggest risks to your organization’s digital security. When they utilize their work email to access websites and programs such as ADP, Paychex, and Ceridian, it can open the door for criminals who have stolen their credentials.

Cybercriminals can use their stolen information to heist the personally identifiable information (PII) of other employees, access payroll information, and even steal from the company coffers. Such breaches can also lead to other criminal activity such as the identity theft of employees or customers.

Client Relations Management
The client relations management (CRM) tool your business uses allows you to communicate seamlessly with your customers. This is great for your business and it’s great for cybercriminals, too.
Pretend for a moment that you have used the same password for your eBay account as you do for your business’s HubSpot. If a hacker steals your eBay credentials, they can access your business’s HubSpot. They can now send an email to your clients pretending to be you. The hacker can ask your clients for anything they want from money to their PII. This can ruin your name and reputation with your clients and within your industry as well as that of your company.

Communications
Another risk lays in your company’s communications from Verizon to Adobe and T-Mobile. For example, if someone wants to hack your AT&T account, they may be able to reveal your payment information from a bank account or credit card. Now they have access to your accounts and can steal money from you and/or your business. Using your mobile number, they can also spoof text messages, reset your bank account password, and access your cash as well as other websites, social media platforms, and other apps you utilize.

Business tools such as email services can also become hacked with the theft of employee credentials. Whether your company uses Gmail, Yahoo, or Office365, these are all hackable. Once someone has access, they can send spoofed emails to clients pretending to be you or an employee asking for more information or even money.

Collaboration
While collaboration among employees, contractors, and vendors is typically considered a positive attribute in business, it can also put your organization at risk. Many individuals and businesses today use Dropbox as a great method of file sharing and collaboration. Such files often contain a plethora of valuable information including trade secrets, PII, and client data. A hacker can use this information to spoof emails, gather data from clients, and target them as their next victims.

Travel Services
If your business employs a travel service to help them get from point A to point B, this can be another security risk. Companies such as Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz typically store your credit card information along with other PII that can be devastating in the event they are breached.

Be sure to employ different login credentials for each of these websites to best protect yourself and your business. Use multi-factor authentication if it is offered and don’t store your billing information with these sites if given this as an option.

E-Commerce
Whether your company orders office supplies online from Staples/Office Depot or your business sells products through Amazon/eBay, this is yet another area of risk. Again, stolen credentials can allow for the theft of PII and access to financial information that can drain your bank account before you realize what has happened.

Banking & Finance
Programs such as QuickBooks or Freshdesk or banking apps from financial organizations such as Bank of America or Wells Fargo can also lead to problems when it comes to credentials. If a hacker steals access to your bank accounts, credit cards, or financial programs, it can be truly devastating for your business.

Imagine having all of your accounts wiped out. How will you pay your employees, cover your business mortgage, or pay out contractors? Once the money is gone, the likelihood you will ever see it again is minimal, as hackers can be very difficult to trace and, even if you do get it back, how will you cover your business expenses in the meantime?

Social Media
If your employees or business are on social media, which most are, this can put your business at higher risk for a breach. Pages on social media can be easily spoofed or copied. A cybercriminal can invite your friends and followers, steal their information, and worse. This can ruin your reputation whether the hacker takes an unpopular political stand on the false page or accesses more people to victimize through spoofing of their personal or business pages.

Other Employee Risks
In addition to the threat of employees having their work credentials stolen, their personal credentials can also put your business at risk if they end up in the wrong hands. For example, if an employee uses their LinkedIn credentials such as their username and password for work in QuickBooks, they can expose your company to a breach. Employees should be trained to use unique usernames and passwords for each program, app, and website they use. This is true not just for work but also for their private internet use as well.

While it can be cumbersome to keep track of different usernames and passwords for each website or app they use, there are password management tools such as MyGlue or LastPass that can keep track of them all. While some of these password management programs are free, some do have a minimal cost associated with them. Remember, you get what you pay for in business. Some of the free apps are poorly encrypted locally on your own device so if you get hacked, the bad guys will still have access to your information. We advise working with a larger company so you know they have the manpower and ability to keep your information safe and secure.

Users often have the same password for multiple services such as network logons, social media, and online stores. This greatly increases the potential for a breach. Train and retrain your employees on cybersecurity. It is worth the investment as is paying a small annual fee for a secure password management tool. Consider this well spent money as an operating expense just as you do with your marketing budget.

Combating the Dark Web
At Oram, our experts are able to search the Dark Web so you don’t have to. Using Dark Web ID from ID Agent, our experts search for your personally identifiable Information (PII) on the Dark Web to determine if you are at risk of experiencing a breach. This gives you time to protect your information, notify your bank or lender, and change passwords before you experience a breach.

How Dark Web ID Works
Dark Web ID is a commercial solution to detecting compromised credentials in real time on the Dark Web. It offers the same advanced credential monitoring capabilities that are employed by Fortune 500 companies. This specially designed software connects to multiple Dark Web services including Tor, I2P, and Freenet where it searches for compromised credentials. With this proprietary software, you don’t have to expose your own software, hardware, or network to these high-risk services directly.

By searching the most secretive and covert corners of the internet, Dark Web ID locates compromised credentials associated with your business, contractors, and personnel. If we find credentials that compromise your company, we notify you immediately BEFORE you become the victim of identity theft, data loss, or a breach. The real-time awareness of compromised credentials Dark Web ID provides means you will know if your PII has been stolen so you can safeguard both your personal and business assets before it’s too late.

Be Prepared
The more information you have, the more valuable it is and the more prepared you can be. We employ extensive logging and reporting capabilities that allow us to track your credentials and the credentials of your employees on the Dark Web. As a result, we can triage incidents quickly and create effective policies and procedures to reduce the risk to your business.

How It Helps Businesses
We use the Dark Web ID as a tool to identify compromises throughout your organization that could put your company at risk for a data loss or major breach. With this software, we are able to monitor the Dark Web 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It is so effective, it reports more than 80,000 compromised emails daily. In addition to email, the program searches and monitors the following platforms frequented by cybercriminals:

• Hidden chat rooms
• Private websites
• Peer-to-peer networks
• Internet relay chat (IRC) channels
• Social media platforms
• Black market sites
• 640,000+ botnets

Predictable Patterns
While it is good practice to be prepared for a breach, it’s even better to have a warning that one could be coming. Using Dark Web ID, we can identify industry patterns. If we see that your industry is starting to come under attack, we can share that intelligence with you to best protect your employees, your business, and your consultants.

Prevention is the Best Medicine
While a network attack may be inevitable, they can be made less destructive and costly. With proactive monitoring of stolen and compromised credentials, you can be alerted to prevent losses before they happen. With alerts that tell you when your credentials have been stolen, you can respond immediately to prevent a breach.

By employing monitoring services and software such as Dark Web ID, your company can move toward compliance with data breach and privacy laws. Our experts can even help you develop and implement a data breach response plan.

If you would like more information about the Dark Web, Dark Web ID, or reducing cyber risks to your business, please call Oram today at (617) 933-5060 or visit us online.

Cybersecurity Awareness Training: How proper training can turn employees into your best security asset

August 10, 2018 by securewebsite

Cybersecurity has become a major focus for business leaders today and rightly so with the number of major data breaches on the rise. Just look at the number of breaches in the first six months of 2018 from an infiltration of U.S. power companies by Russian hackers to 150 million users of Under Armour’s MyFitnessPal app having their personal data stolen. The threat to today’s businesses is very real but employees can be a business’s best security resource if properly trained.

The report, Magic Quadrant for Security Awareness Computer-Based Training, by Garner, a leading computer trends analyst, reported, “People impact security outcomes much more than any technology, policy, or process. People play an undeniable role in an organization’s overall security and risk posture. This role is defined by both inherent strengths and weaknesses: People’s ability to learn and their capacity for error.”

The Human Factor
Human error leads to breaches all the time. Whether an unsuspecting employee in your business clicks on a phishing link that exposes your entire network to a malicious virus or someone misplaces a phone, tablet, or laptop with unsecured access to proprietary data, human error can lead to big security problems.

Study after study shows the largest threat to any business, by far, is the people who work there. The 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon shows malicious employees were responsible for 28 percent of attacks. In addition, the same report revealed human error was responsible for another 17 percent (or nearly one in five) breaches studied in the report.

Though these types of statistics show the desperate need for ongoing, repetitive, and engaging cybersecurity awareness training, many business leaders fail to see its importance and value.

Terrible Training Stats
Employees should be the first layer of security for every business but the fact of the matter is they have become the largest threat to business security today in major part due to a lack of proper cybersecurity awareness training. A report by SolarWinds MSP, Cybersecurity: Can Overconfidence Lead to an Extinction Event?, demonstrates that despite how important cybersecurity awareness training is, only 16 percent of respondents in the study considered it a priority.

An incredible 71 percent of companies studied in the SolarWinds investigation admitted to including such training only as part of the onboarding process or as a one-off annual event. Another 13 percent of organizations studied said that they offered no cybersecurity training to employees at all.

Why Training is Imperative
As mentioned earlier, breaches among businesses of all sizes are on the rise and the costs to remediate such attacks are also increasing. The FBI reported a 2,370 percent increase in exposed losses between January 2015 and December 2016. Additionally, a total of more than $5 billion was stolen from businesses in cyber theft between October 2013 and December 2016. That meant there was an average loss of $100,000 per incident and losses are projected to top $9 billion this year alone.

With this in mind, the primary goal of cyber security awareness training is to change the behavior of your employees so they are less susceptible to social engineering: Being manipulated, influenced, or deceived by someone to take action that isn’t in the best interest of your business. Some of the most common examples of social engineering attacks include phishing or spear-phishing by phone, email, postal service, or direct contact in order to trick people into doing something that will harm your company. You have the power to stop this by incorporating cybersecurity awareness training into your business before it’s too late.

When to Train?
The most-effective cybersecurity awareness training programs are ongoing. The first training for every employee should occur during the onboarding process. Thereafter, there should be frequent training opportunities and reminders, even if they are brief such as a once-a-month, computer-based training that only takes a few minutes.

Every employee should be offered a deeper training annually to update them on the latest threats to businesses in their industry and remind them of what they can do to help prevent attacks. There should also be additional trainings whenever a potential threat is identified or a cyber incident has occurred within the company so there are no repeat events.

What Should Be Covered?
One of the best ways companies can mitigate their cybersecurity risk is through proper training. The wrong way to approach training is as a once-a-year or semi-annual exercise where everyone is gathered for a training involving a long, boring PowerPoint presentation. This can feel more like a punishment for your busy employees rather than a valuable learning opportunity.

Not only should training be consistent with frequent, easy-to-follow training sessions, it should vary by topic and address the particular access to valuable data each employee has due to their individual role. Not everyone learns in the same way and not everyone needs to learn the same material.

Offer trainings aimed at specific roles taking into consideration how much access each has to valuable data and how they are most likely to be targeted by hackers. By offering interactive, role-based training in small, digestible portions with greater frequency, your employees will see it as valuable and easier to implement.

There should also be an emphasis on defeating social engineering attacks such as phishing emails that could lead to network-wide disaster. The aforementioned Verizon report determined that while 78 percent of people don’t click on a single phishing campaign all year, an average 4 percent of targets in any given phishing campaign will click it. Even more astonishing, it was found that the more phishing emails someone has clicked, the more likely they are to do so again.

Assess for Success
Cybersecurity training should also be assessed with frequent, short quizzes through training and reinforced through pen testing. This ensures employees absorb the valuable lessons being taught so they can act as the business’s first line of cyber defense.

How to Train
One of the most effective and more commonly used methods of cybersecurity awareness training being utilized by businesses today is interactive, computer-based training. It wields modern technology such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices to engage your employees in learning about the invaluable role they play in protecting your business.

“Showing a trainee how to recognize that out of nearly 20 types of files an email attachment could come in, the only one that is absolutely safe to open is a file ending in .txt can be a security game changer,” according to the whitepaper How to Fortify Your Organization’s Last Layer of Security- Your Employees. “Providing short, three- or four-question quizzes at regular intervals during a training module helps employees review and reinforce their understanding of particular training elements and can increase their trust in the impact the course is having and motivate them to complete it, thanks to congratulatory messages after each quiz.”

At the end of the day, human beings can become your best means of defense only when the proper security awareness training is employed. It can show them how they may be susceptible to social engineering, which is considered to be the single greatest security risk in the years to come, and that they can defeat it. Such training also demonstrates that you are willing to invest in them as much as you are in the technology they utilize each and every day. With such insight and education, your employees will feel empowered to protect the business you all are working so hard for.

If you need assistance with developing and implementing an effective cybersecurity awareness training program, contact Oram today at (617) 933-5060.