Extortion emails have been around for a long time, the most common of which is known as ‘porn scamming’ or ‘sextortion’. For the lucky few that have never received a sextortion scam, it’s where cyber criminals send you an email claiming to have a video of you watching pornography by installing malware on your computer and spying through your webcam.

Social distancing has rapidly changed the way businesses operate, with many companies adapting to remote working in a matter of weeks. Needless to say, this has not gone unnoticed by cyber criminals who, assuming that IT defences will be affected, have been heavily targeting SMEs in a range of sectors.

You may assume that large corporations are the main target for financially driven cyber criminals, but sadly small and medium businesses are just as at risk. What makes this risk worse is that oftentimes, a small business’s cyber defence strategies are underfunded, increasing exposure to threats. A staggering 46% of SME business owners believe that cyber-attacks are ‘mainly an issue for bigger organisations.’ (Gallagher research). However nearly 90% of breaches occur in small businesses (FirstData), highlighting a deep misunderstanding when it comes to the cyber security threat landscape.