Higher profit margins and the ease of reaching a potentially global audience make doing business online worthwhile. Yet, better opportunities come at the cost of digital risk. Cyber crooks would love nothing more than to acquire your extensive customer databases or use your business’s established presence to steal from it and damage its reputation.
In this article, we explore some of the scams they employ and the practical steps you can take to recognize and preempt them.
Chapters
What Scams Target Online Business Owners?
Being completely immersed in and dependent on the digital world to operate commercially makes online businesses and their owners the targets of various cyberattacks. Here are just the most common and dangerous ones.
Phishing and BEC
By necessity, online business owners need to be more accessible than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Public exposure means details about them are more easily available. This means fraudsters can more easily create convincing phishing emails and trick you into providing your banking or e-commerce platform details.
Similarly, Business Email Compromise exploits the availability of information on you to target employees and demand they transfer money to offshore accounts or send over confidential data.
Invoice fraud
Successful online businesses handle thousands of transactions daily. Cybercriminals count on this and may send fake invoices in hopes that the business will pay them without getting suspicious.
Invoice redirection is more sophisticated since it requires access to the company’s email system obtained through a data breach. This scenario involves intercepting and altering legitimate invoice requests towards the attackers’ accounts.
Fake supplier scams
Dropshippers and subscription-based online businesses are particularly vulnerable to fake supplier scams. The fakes present themselves as legitimate suppliers and attract notice with lower prices or favorable terms. Once businesses place large orders, they get away with the money.
Chargeback fraud
Customers can be scammers, too. They may purchase and receive a product, but claim they didn’t—their bank refunds the purchase, while you’re left to eat the cost. Worse yet, frequent cases of chargeback fraud might make your store seem less trustworthy while encouraging scammers to engage in it even more.
Ad fraud
Successful ad campaigns generate the short-term boost you need for long-term growth. Yet, some scammers can either automate clicking on your ads or even create fake websites and encourage you to buy traffic on them. The consequences are doubly damaging since you’re wasting precious ad spend while getting corrupted data that is useless for refining future ad campaigns.
How to Stay Safe?
Protecting yourself is a matter of spotting the red flags associated with each scam in time and having the know-how and tools to deal with them. Using a VPN with built-in scam and fraud alert features can offer an extra layer of protection by warning you about malicious websites or suspicious links before you click on them.
Invoice scammers may lack access to all the information that makes up a legitimate invoice. Searching for discrepancies and following up with vendors through verified sources may foil the scammers’ plans.
Write up a clear returns policy while keeping detailed records of transaction histories and delivery confirmations to deter chargeback fraud.
Analytics fraud is best combated via monitoring tools that look for and flag suspicious patterns. You may also have a third party verify that ads are being displayed correctly and are reaching audiences as intended.
Phishing and its offshoots require vigilance on your and your employees’ end. Scammers who resort to them spoof emails or use ones that look deceptively similar to the originals. Learn how to recognize the telltale signs of phishing, and don’t hesitate to follow up with the supposed sender through other means if you suspect foul play.
Don’t underestimate the power of being proactive either. For example, cybercriminals can coordinate on the dark web for weeks before attempting a data breach. Knowing this as the information becomes available, is invaluable for mounting an effective defense.
Investing in threat intelligence tools lets you identify potential threats as they emerge. The tools scour the dark web and can alert you when your company or any associated information is mentioned. Moreover, they help you uncover vulnerabilities tied to your company’s attack surface, like open ports or unpatched operating systems, before these become attack vectors.
Conclusion
Scams targeting online businesses are an unfortunate yet inescapable part of your success story. Recognize and meet them head-on to minimize the risk.
