Businesses urged to take advantage of free online training to protect them from scams

National Trading Standards has launched Businesses Against Scams – a free online training tool to protect businesses, employees and customers from costly scams.

Derbyshire Trading Standards is encouraging businesses to take advantage of the free resources available and make themselves aware of how the fraudsters are operating.

Criminals are seizing the opportunity to target employees who are isolated from colleagues as a result of lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic.

Scams include criminals impersonating government officials or a senior member of the business in order to put pressure on employees to give out sensitive information or make payments.

Criminals will also try and gain access to businesses’ devices and networks and everything stored on them. They can do this by:

sending emails with malicious attachments
exploiting vulnerabilities in your operating systems if they are not up-to-date
trying to get you to click links or visit malicious websites.
Once they have access to your device and your data, they may try to steal that data or extract money from you by getting you to pay a ransom.

Councillor Carol Hart, Cabinet Member for Health and Communities at Derbyshire County Council, said:

“Businesses are already facing difficulties posed by the coronavirus pandemic and the last thing they need is to fall prey to scams from criminals seeking to use the current situation for their own ends.

“Derbyshire Trading Standards is working to protect Derbyshire residents and businesses and I would urge businesses to join Businesses Against Scams and use the free tools to train their workforce and to make their staff aware of potential scams.”