WILTSHIRE Police warned Swindon businesses about the dangers of cyber-crime and offered advice on how they could protect themselves.

An open letter issued as part of the force's #CyberLife campaign included the most common ways criminals scam victims and the best ways of stopping them.

Phishing emails which aim to gain access by to a secure network by tricking staff into opening them can be spotted by noticing misspelling and bad grammar in the subject line, addressing the staff member using a vague term like 'customer', or links that require staff to sign in to a personal account.

Cyber prevent and protect officers Lee Stripe and Kieran Hall wrote: "Double check the email address that has sent the email, there could be a slight change to make it look like a supplier you deal with or it could be spoofed and the real email address is hidden.

"If you or a staff member spot a phishing attack or fall victim of one, please report these attempts to Action Fraud.

"We advise that you configure email accounts on your networks to reduce the impact of successful attacks.

"Configuring staff accounts to the lowest level of user rights required to carry out their role will reduce the amount of damage that can be caused if they were to fall victim of an attack."

Employers should install effective antivirus software to block malware on every device and should ensure all their passwords are strong with two-factor authentication.

Keep devices up to date so that they can protect against the latest cyber-threats - and backup all data so that hackers can't hold it to ransom.

The letter continued: "For some this is just a simple problem that will require them to grab their up to date backup and restore their systems. No panicking about what to do or worrying about lost data, it could mean a few hours of downtime, but will leave you safe in the knowledge that you can restore your systems and then carry on as normal.

"When you sort out your backup strategy consider what data you need to back up. Identify that business critical data first and only then look at what else you need.

"Backing up isn’t very interesting, but once it’s sorted you can setup i an automated process that will help you keep your data up to date when changes are made. You should look to make backing up part of your daily business, helping you to minimise the loss of data. "Most importantly keep your backups separate from your computer, whether it’s on a different drive, USB stick or even consider using cloud storage.

For more guidance, email diiu@wiltshire.pnn.police.uk