Tax Phishing Emails targeting Indian SMEs: ESET

ESET researchers have revealed that latest cyberthreats are targeting Indian small and medium businesses (SMEs). It has also been noticed that most of the Indian Income Tax-related spams are aimed at affecting SMEs by cybercriminals.

The e-mails often lead users to infected websites or try to fool them into opening infected attachments trying to compromise the system. 

The SMEs usually lacking the security resources of the big corporations are increasingly on the radar of the cyberattacks.

Even the smallest business will have personal details of staff on file as well as company accounts and customer activities. In short, businesses will at some point generate and store data that would be of interest to cybercriminals. 

Pankaj Jain, Director, ESET India, said, "To fight against such attacks as spam, phishing, social engineering used by bad guys to attack smaller companies, you do not have to invest much.

Good security software, antivirus with anti-spam and anti-phishing, some basic social media security policies for employees along with basic training on secure behaviour online and offline, are enough to keep your sensitive information and your clients' data safe."

In case of tax phishing, e-mails that traditionally pop up towards the end of March, security software can bock fraudulent emails or block links in emails to web pages that are known to be infected or block downloading of attachments containing malware. With emerging mobile internet market in India, it becomes more difficult for big and small companies to keep their infrastructures safe from cybercriminals.