Our Chief eNitiater, Bra Willy, sings praises for e-commerce, because its value in saving time, his most valuable resource as an entrepreneur, is immeasurable. At least 95% of eNitiate’s financial transactions are made online in various forms. The ability for doing business anytime, anywhere, enabled by the power of integrated devices, is completely seductive to him.
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Norton 2013 Report: Global cost per cybercrime victim went up by 50%
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However, while e-commerce is appreciated, the increasing cybercrime risk burden that comes with it, especially for many businesses of eNitiate’s size that do not have the capability to install costly full-proof security systems to mitigate this risk, is wearisome. See a related post here below about MtGox and Flexicoin banks that folded due to cyber theft of Bitcoin currency from their virtual vaults.
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Bra Willy receives more dubious SMS’s lately than was ever the case before. What’s more worrying, some of them are purportedly from the bank!
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Despite all this, we are grateful to our business bank – something rare to say about banks generally – for keeping a watchful eye for suspicious movements in our business account, and taking proactive steps where necessary.
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Cybercriminals tried to draw funds from our business account 2 weekends ago using Bra Willy’s cloned card – it’s a mystery even to the bank how they did it. The only saving grace was that card’s PIN was not (correctly) cloned as well. Thanks to the bank’s PIN security measures, the cloned card was blocked after 3 failed attempts using the incorrect PIN.
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Notice the time when the 3 SMS above were sent? All this happened while Bra Willy was enjoying a well-deserved rest in his comfortable bed. As it turned out, the location of attempted cybercrime was Peru, according to my bank (yeah, can you believe it?). The inconvenience of applying for a new card and registering a PIN was nothing compared to the associated loss eNitiate would have suffered if the business account was cleaned out.
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A 2013 research report indicated that members of UK’s Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) lose this amount a year. The view is that the actual amount lost is higher, partly also because not all small businesses belong to the FSB.
As though South African entrepreneurs do not have enough to deal with as part of keeping their businesses going already, now there is an added worry about cybercrime or facing the risk of business bank accounts being cleaned out.
*challenges abound*
