As we waved goodbye to the turbulence of Covid in 2022, one thing became crystal clear – the cybercrime world was evolving right alongside us. Just like we adapted to the new normal, cybercriminals shifted gears, leaving behind their old tricks for a slicker, sneakier approach.

Picture this: hackers no longer play the spray and pray game; they’re after a highly targeted approach. Those emails from your clients? Yep, hackers are pretending to be part of those conversations now, making it harder to tell friend from foe.  

Remember the days when the big accounting firms soaked up all the cyber-attacks? Well, times have changed, and cybercriminals are moving down the food chain to target smaller accounting firms with less resources, protection, and training around data security.

At Practice Protect, we witness this unsettling reality everyday. No other provider has as much real-world experience as we have in fighting accounting cyber-crime since 2015.

Today we proudly stand as the Accounting Industry’s largest and most trusted cybersecurity provider, supporting 23,000+ accountants and bookkeepers across 2000+ firms worldwide.

Here are some of the trends we are observing among our clients and the wider accounting community -

Trend #1: AI Impersonations

Cybercriminals are taking impersonations to the next level. With the help of AI tools, impersonating the communication style of the leadership team or clients has become so much easier.

The kicker? A whopping 67% of Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks are now riding the AI wave, making detection a real challenge for all team members. And as versatile AI tools like ChatGPT become more common, language barriers crumble, setting the stage for an avalanche of high-quality BEC attacks.  

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Trend #2: Targeted Phishing

As if AI wasn’t enough, here comes another curveball: targeted phishing. Cybercriminals are no longer casting a wide net; they’re aiming straight for the prize catch.

With emails that look like they’re from your trusted payment partners, they’re fishing for your sensitive info where it hurts the most. In fact, 2022 witnessed the highest rate of mobile phishing attacks in history.

Trend #3: Evolving Cyber Insurance

Insurers are an excellent barometer to measure the probability and potential severity of a threat to your business. As an attack vector becomes popular, insurers start to add exclusions, raise premiums, add excess payments and lower limits of payouts.  

Rob Collyer from Nova Underwriting says: “Cybersecurity has been the most rapid development out of any product that we’ve witnessed in the market.” Insurance policies are shifting just as fast to match the pace of cyber threats.

How Practice Protect helps?

Our platform offers enterprise-grade security standards to smaller accounting firms at a fraction of the cost. This ensures you regain control and visibility over your sensitive client data and effectively manage risk and compliance.