A quote from Gary George as seen on LinkedIn says: “When it comes to cyberfraud, the thief can fail 99% of the time and still win. Those charged with preventing cyberfraud must succeed 100% of the time, or they lose.”
Most of us in business hate receiving endless numbers of spam emails. As we curse the wasted time in clearing out these emails, we might also lose sight of the philosophy behind the spammers, fraudsters, and cybercriminals business models. Consequently, we may miss many valuable business lessons because we only think of these parties as criminals and not business professionals.
What we fail to understand as a result, is that these parties are in the business of fraud and they specialise in this area of interest and expertise. At the end of the day, these criminals and their business models are designed to help them maximise their return on investment. From all of the exposed results, many of these perpetrators appear to be most profitable at this task as the above quote indicates that the odds are on their side.
If we undertake a dispassionate view of the above, there are four main factors we can take into our own business dealings from spammers, fraudsters, and cybercriminals.
1 Their continued innovation as they invest and try all types of strategies in conjunction with observing the human behaviour of their targeted market. By focusing on these factors, spammers, fraudsters, and cybercriminals remain largely successful.
Meanwhile businesspeople are often wary of innovation and/or of the cost of innovating via the use of technology, and by not paying attention to their employees’ needs. As a result, these businesses fail to achieve either their full potential and/or to be successful over the long term.
In addition, these businesses often:
- use poorly designed technology tools, without beta testing the technology adequately to ensure it delivers the benefits claimed,
- believe that technology tools will solve many of their operational problems, and
- as a result, many business owners and their managers are unprepared to deal properly with any unintended negative consequences,
- employ unprofessional or poorly trained employees,
- outsource essential duties,
- offer few rewards for excellence and good behaviour,
- fail to understand why disenfranchised, or distracted employees often click on the wrong email or pay invoices without due diligence as to the authenticity of the invoice or the sender, etc.
2 Fraudsters, spammers and cybercriminals are disciplined and refuse to accept defeat and knockbacks, particularly when it comes to the use of technology. This fact is validated by the constant stream of emails which contain:
- requests to change customers details and bank account information,
- false invoices sent which are then often paid,
- unrequested contracts or other “legal” documents requesting to be signed and returned,
- all the investment opportunities Which are “too good to be true” to make money,
- emails with attachments containing viruses included in attachments, etc.
As each of these emails are taken up or viewed, perpetrators benefit and win again.
In these situations, we see the underlying lack of discipline in both the commercial and private setting and a lack of commonsense when people receive unsolicited emails.
The solution to many of these situations is to ensure we are all:
- understand the habits and strategies of spammers, fraudsters and cybercriminals,
- requires constant training and efforts to educate our employees,
- disciplined and control our urge to open unsolicited emails,
- seek to validate all unsolicited emails, and
- make sure if we operate and manage a business that our employees’ needs are satisfied commensurate to their position within our business(s).
3 Fraudsters, spammers and cybercriminals are heartless and when they win, do not care about their targets when their victims lose. They just celebrate another win for themselves.
For a business however, these factors are not ones which they should be cultivating. The last thing a business should be seeking is the destruction of their stakeholders, just for short-term benefit. After all, a business is not an island in a community and we all need as many positive stakeholder transactions and interactions as we can attract to survive and grow our business.
All business owners and managers should strive for a win-win situation for all transactions with their stakeholders for the long-term success of their business.
4 Fraudsters, spammers and cybercriminals employ the best people they can find and reward them appropriately. Many of these parties are operated by foreign governments under various entities and have almost unlimited resources to fund their operations. Major criminal organisations also seek the best resources and operate similarly.
Unfortunately, many of us which operate legal businesses and/or use computers, do not have access to all the resources which are available to the above organisations. Therefore, we have to approach the protection of ourselves by employing, or having access to the best and smartest people we can afford to help us.
That is not an easy order to fulfil these days. However, if we educate and discipline ourselves properly, surround ourselves with reputable people and use a bit of common sense, there is a good chance of success. It also means if we are hacked or sent emails with malicious intent, we can minimise any damage which may result.
There is no one source of business knowledge or strategies. As most of us might not want to admit it, a good source of business knowledge is provided by spammers, fraudsters, and cybercriminals. To do so means you have to accept they are businesspeople with their own business models. When you study their strategies in that context, there is much we can learn from them about how to conduct our own business(s) equally successfully.
Want to know more about this topic, contact Kim at kim@creditmatters.com.au, or on Mobile 0411 649 261. Alternatively, have a look at what we offer via our website at www.creditmatters.com.au
