Love your team? 5 tips to protect your employees from romance scams
A total of £92 million was lost in the 2022/23 tax year to romance scams. This equated to over 8000 reports, and an average of £11,500 lost per person.
Romance scams can lure your employees into a false sense of security if they do not have regular cyber security training. They may think they are speaking to a genuine individual, but it turns out to be a trick to separate them from their money.
Those who are lonely may be significantly more vulnerable in terms of falling for this manipulation. In addition to this, your female employees may be slightly more at risk, making up for 53% of reported cases.
Romance scams can often occur via email. These may be entirely unsolicited and sent to your employee’s business or personal accounts. Learning how to spot any form of scam email can be a good first step in improving their overall cyber security, both at work and in their personal lives.
While these links could contain malware, they may also be used to gain access to an individual’s finances. Therefore, you should teach employees to never click any links in emails they do not recognise as well as the most common aspects to look for in scam emails. This can be done by implementing regular cybersecurity training for your team these harmless scam emails arrive randomly throughout the month and will teach any employees that click to constantly stay vigilant with all emails.
Networking can be an important part of business life. It allows you to make great connections with other likeminded individuals and build on your skill sets. However, care needs to be taken when using social media.
While you may expect fake profiles to be present on social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram, there might also be fraudulent users on LinkedIn, which is often used for working professionals as well as being connected with their business accounts directly.
Although you may want your team to build on brand awareness by connecting with clients and others in your industry, they need to exert caution when doing so. Information found on LinkedIn isn’t verified, meaning the name, company, and even picture used may not be accurate.
Teaching your employees to be cautious when liaising with people they do not know in person can be vital. Otherwise, they may wind up giving away personal or business information that puts themselves and their business at risk.
It isn’t just individuals that your employees need to be wary of. Romance scams can also be carried out on fake dating websites. These are more prevalent than you might think, with 15 million scam dating sites detected between November 2021 and March 2022.
These may notify your employee that a potential love interest has tried to message them on a site which they don’t remember signing up to. Usually, this email includes a link to allow them to view the message. This acts in the same way as a phishing scam, giving the scammer access to personal details that will weaken your cyber security.
Should your employees receive any emails from sites they do not recognise, or that they have queries about, it is imperative that they are taught to report and delete them. Clicking links or downloading attachments can have a devastating impact on that individual and, if done on a business computer, your business as well.
Having strong cyber security measures in place can greatly reduce the likelihood of your employees falling victim to romance scams sent via email.
Using a trusted anti-spam software which blocks spam and dangerous emails is incredibly beneficial. While you may ensure that anti-spam is installed on business devices, it can be good for your working relationship to remind employees to also take care outside of work.
In 2022, a leading anti-virus provider blocked over 70,000 romance scams from reaching the inboxes of potential victims in only nine days. Using these figures, we can calculate that approximately 2,838,889 scam emails could be blocked every single year. While having anti-spam is a great step for your cyber security, human error means that you are still at risk of these threats.
The world of cyber threats is ever-changing, meaning scammers will adjust their working mechanisms and attempt to grow around your cyber security. Therefore, constant vigilance is needed to prevent your employees from becoming victims.
Increasing your working knowledge on the different cyber threats, and which cyber security measures can be put into place, can help you avoid romance scams and other potential dangers.
This training shouldn’t just be a one-off. Instead, consistent and regular training keeps the information fresh in your employees’ minds. At the same time, you also need to ensure you have a robust procedure for reporting and managing cyber security risks. This way, if romance scams do lead to cyber security breaches within your company, you can mitigate the threat as much as possible.
While your employees are free to do what they will outside of their working hours, you may still want to take some responsibility for their well-being. Teaching them of the dangers of romance scams and other cyber scams could make a big difference. In addition to this, employees may hold more loyalty to a business which genuinely cares about them.
Book a meeting today to discuss training your team on safe practices.
Anne-Marie Blazdell
Anne-Marie Blazdell is a Marketing & Communications Manager with expertise in digital marketing, content creation, and IT solutions. With a strong foundation in graphic design, she trained at Farnborough College of Technology and Southampton Solent University before advancing into marketing and business IT support.
Since joining Syn-Star in 2022, Anne-Marie has specialised in crafting SEO-optimised website content, managing social media, and helping businesses navigate the complexities of IT. Her work bridges the gap between technology and business, making IT more accessible and effective.
Have a Question? Ask us here!
Anne-Marie Blazdell
Anne-Marie Blazdell is a Marketing & Communications Manager with expertise in digital marketing, content creation, and IT solutions. With a strong foundation in graphic design, she trained at Farnborough College of Technology and Southampton Solent University before advancing into marketing and business IT support.
Since joining Syn-Star in 2022, Anne-Marie has specialised in crafting SEO-optimised website content, managing social media, and helping businesses navigate the complexities of IT. Her work bridges the gap between technology and business, making IT more accessible and effective.
Our support is designed to meet and exceed the needs of your business. We’re equipped to provide business support, as your business grows. Our technicians are ready to identify your pains swiftly, rectify the causes, and maintain your business technology for the long term.
You’re device is on an Unsupported Windows Operating System for your security, please contact us.
Team Productivity:
You and your team are able to see where they are using their time and how productive they are actually being. Also they are able to clock in and out, so really good for flexi-working.
Team Monitoring:
If you would like to know what your team is doing and how productive they are being, we are able to monitor them and create screenshots of what they are working on. This can be run in normal or stealth mode.
Book a FREE fact finding session to discuss the different options.
We proactively seek opportunities to support good causes for our community.
From sponsoring local community football teams, to engaging with charity fundraiser days, we believe it’s important to continually strive to do good for the better of others.
We have members who volunteer with youth organisations, are engaged with the Round Table, run marathons and volunteer at events where we may be needed. Every charity receives a discounted IT and Telecoms service too.
Protecting your digital data is crucial for every business and this can start with the industry-leading security we offer. The Syn-Star specialists can help with identifying any vulnerabilities within your IT systems and act accordingly to ensure cyber-attacks and data breaches are mitigated.
Your business will never fall behind with its technology when you work with Syn-Star.
We understand IT and Telecoms for your business is an investment, but it’s important to use the best resources available to enable the growth of your business. Our IT Consultancy and Virtual IT Director Services are available to support you with how you use your business technology for years to come.
Syn-Star can conduct quick and easy phishing exercises to identify people within your team who need to improve on their knowledge around fraudulent emails and how they can be alerted to these threats.
At Syn-Star, our experts can proactively work to understand exactly what software you need to support with the business operations. Whether you need a listening ear on what software to choose, or would like to seek some specialist knowledge, we’re here to help where we can.
At Syn-Star, we keep Telecoms simple. There’s so much available to help UK companies with their communications. VoIP systems, fixed landline, cloud phone systems, SIP trunking and more. Contact us for further details.
Desk phones, cordless phones or conference phones, Syn-Star can provide you with whatever you need.
From conference calling facilities to the headsets which work best for your team, we’re able to provide all the equipment you need and complete any telecoms job from start to finish.
There is no need to be in the office to make and receive phone calls from your company’s number. Our market-leading Telecoms platform gives you the flexibility of desk phones, soft phones and mobile apps as standard.
Whether your team works remotely, or perhaps staff are on a business trip anywhere in the world, calls can still be made, and people are reachable via phone wherever they go.
With a range of products, our team can support you by installing exactly what you need for internet connectivity. We work with the very best products to provide speedy bandwidths which play a part in the increased productivity of your team.
