eKourier July 2017

FEATURES

Don’t Become A Victim, Get CYBER Street Smart…

Customer Feedback “Friendly helpful service at the Moore Park units! Also the fact you refund if you move out early, never seen that and it’s fantastic, thanks!” “Daniel at Ivanhoe is wonderful. So attentive and communicates very well. I am a return customer and it was lovely to be remembered along with previous needs or preferences.” “My second time at Kennards Huntingdale and still very happy with this place. The quality of service is second to none. Professional and very helpful staff (Dane); nice, clean and tidy environment at Huntingdale.” “Great phone, email and face to face communication at Hastings. Above all you were flexible and always felt like I was dealing with real people rather than a faceless company.” “We were delighted with our Kennards experience at Fyshwick. We appreci- ated the service and the facility as well as the contractual arrangements. Darryl and Colin are fantastic Brand ambassadors for Kennards.” “Very good. I used the Camperdown site and the staff were very helpful and friendly. The whole process was very easy and straight forward. I only needed it for five days to store a motorcycle that over the time I needed to come and go at odd hours and the arrangement suited those needs perfectly.” “Patricia at Burleigh was excellent throughout the entire process and was always available to help with any questions I had. Great service!” “Front Desk very well organised. Details of availability very clear. Tour around Belmont was excellent. Explanation of Terms and options very good. Cleanliness very good. Nice that you refund if we leave early” “Very good. Very helpful staff made it easy for me to choose the right unit at Brookvale. Very secure too.”

N ow days, it’s easier, more convenient and just a whole lot more practical for criminals to make a crust using cyber and social engineering techniques. After all, the smart money is on probability. If I’m a criminal and have half a brain, why would I bother breaking into a home, robing a bank or raiding an ATM, when instead, from the comfort of my lounge while watching the Friday night footy, I could craft an email, buy a big list of email addresses for about the price of fish and chips, dress it up like Australia Post, Microsoft … (take your pick), stick some bait in it enticing you to give up sensitive information and send it off to thousands. Now I can sit back and wait, it’s still only half time… The dumb criminal is catching on, and the smart ones are just getting a whole lot more sophisticated. It’s a numbers game through and through, where skills are at the ready and the odds are on the smart money. It doesn’t end with trick email techniques, though they are a popular tool of choice for both novice and organised cyber syndicates, simply because they are extremely effective and require little effort with minimal barriers to entry. These techniques and exploits are commonly known as social engineering , a term you should become familiar with. By definition: social engineering goes like this: the use of deception to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential or personal informa- tion that may be used for fraudulent purposes . You know someone that knows someone… right? The reality is we live in a rapidly growing digital world with an electronic economy, invest- ments are being made on both sides - good and evil . The context stands on its own, it doesn’t require numbers or statistics, it is what it is and yet needs to be told over and over and over again…

Financial losses, identity fraud, infected computers are just the beginning, the damage doesn’t stop there and when the narrative becomes business, well that’s a whole new ball game, think customer data and brand reputation… The dumb criminal is catching on and the smart ones are just getting a whole lot more sophisticated. While there are no guarantees that malicious actors won’t get to your information, memorise and practise these 3 tips: • Use complicated, unique and difficult to crack passwords. • Don’t simply click on any link, instead, go to the website directly and log in from there. • Be suspicious about the senders of any unexpected message you receive via email or social media. Back to the footy. You deleted the email right? After all you weren’t expecting an update from FedEx, and you certainly didn’t buy into the story someone chose you to leave their fortunes to, and you certainly didn’t fall for Microsoft deciding you were customer of the month and called you directly… Well, the ref just blew his whistle to signal full time, and we have ourselves a mixed bag; some passwords, some back accounts, some credit card details and we still have the whole weekend or should I say online world ahead of us… Jeff Xanthos Chief Information Officer ‘

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5 Kennards Kourier July 2017