For over 20 years, Zoho has focused on providing business solutions that cater to every need. And, in the recent past, we've aimed at building a product that can make every organization more secure.
Let's understand this better with the example of Travel Rectangle. Travel Rectangle is a travel and vacation planning company with customers all over the globe. They are known for building unique itineraries and making sure their customers return from their vacations with many good memories.
When a customer approaches Travel Rectangle to plan their holiday, they're first assigned a planning expert. Rina is one such expert who's working with multiple customers. She builds itineraries for her clients based on their requirements and once finalized, Rina generates a payment link from Travel Rectangle's payment portal and sends it to the customer. Once the payment is made, the bookings are done, and all that's left is for the customer to go on an exciting trip!
One day, Rina receives an email from their CEO. In the email, the CEO requests her credentials to the payment portal. In the excitement and urgency of receiving an email directly from the CEO, Rina provides the requested credentials without much thought. The aftermath of this oversight becomes catastrophic not just for Travel Rectangle, but also for their customers.
Payment links get sent out to customers, and many customers go ahead to make the payments, but the money doesn't get credited to Travel Rectangle. Hackers, with the intent to extract money without eliciting suspicion, send a spoofed email, gain the credentials, alter the payment links, and send them out to unsuspecting customers.
The customers simply send the payment through, believing the email to be from Travel Rectangle. The hackers' plan is carried out successfully, and they disappear without trace once they make the required money. Not only do the customers and the company suffer a loss, but the company also experiences a severe hit on their brand reputation.
Sadly, a massive security breach such as this doesn't go unnoticed, and agitated customers start feeling that their data is no longer secure with Travel Rectangle. One such customer, Michael, starts legal proceedings because he’s been cheated of his money.
Travel Rectangle now has to produce evidence in court to add credibility to their case and prove that they were the victims of a phishing attack. Unfortunately, Travel Rectangle's employees are also locked out of their email accounts as a result of the attack, and they're not in a position to retrieve the phishing email.
Now, not only is Travel Rectangle facing a severe reputational hit and losing customers, but they're also in the middle of legal proceedings that might be hard to get out of.
Any guesses on what they should've done to avoid this predicament? Drop your guesses in the comments and we'll get back to you with an announcement very soon!
Keep an eye out on this space to know all about Zoho's new product that can secure not just your organization and employees but also your customers.
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