This year’s Get Safe Online Week (10th-16th October) focuses on small and medium sized businesses under the theme: ‘Cybersecurity is everybody’s business’. So, what better time than today for Get Safe Online to launch its latest feature – Check a website for businesses? www.getsafeonline.org/business/checkawebsite
The respected online safety resource has partnered with Cifas, the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, to launch Check a website for businesses. This innovative new feature, hosted at www.getsafeonline.org/business, makes it easy for employees to check if a website is likely to be legitimate or fraudulent before visiting it to purchase products or services, research a new supplier or develop a new partnership. They simply need to type or paste in the address of the website they want to check, and the results will appear within seconds.
For businesses of all types and sizes, visiting fraudulent websites is a commonplace cause of financial fraud, malware infections and data breaches. As criminals are increasingly targeting businesses online, it is vital to ensure that employees do not inadvertently interact with fraudulent organisations. In the first half of 2021, businesses lost a reported £59.2 million to fraud, an increase of 35% over the previous half year, so the more businesses that can find out how to avoid falling victim, the better.
Provided in the UK by Get Safe Online, in conjunction with Cifas, ScamAdviser, Barclays and other partners, it cleverly uses an algorithm to provide a trust score based on more than 40 data sources as well as thousands of reports of malicious websites from law enforcement agencies and regulators every week.
Tony Neate, CEO of Get Safe Online, comments: “Earlier this year we launched Check a website for consumers – with a very successful take-up by both users and the media. The feature has already received thousands of hits, meaning that an increasing number of individuals really are making sure they are not being scammed before engaging with new websites, and can continue to use and conduct business on the internet with confidence.
“Launching an extension of this facility to the business sector is a no-brainer – it’s easy to use and will provide organisations with the reassurance that employees can now check out websites before they make a purchase or engage with them for other reasons.”
Mike Haley, Chief Executive for Cifas said: “Businesses continue to suffer from fraud losses as criminals employ increasingly sophisticated tactics to siphon away their cash. In the first six months of this year, we saw a 20% increase in companies listed as victims of impersonation, as well as a 56% increase in victims of account takeover—where fraudsters gain access to an existing account, such as a bank account, and take control. Check a website is an invaluable tool which will help businesses feel more confident online, adding another layer of security to their existing processes by letting them know whether a website is hiding malware, informing how they navigate online spaces.”
Check a website is supported by a number of organisations. Primary Supporters include Get Safe Online, Cifas and Barclays, and Associate Supporters include Cyber Defence Alliance, National Trading Standards Scams Team and Skipton Building Society.
