{"id":719,"date":"2026-07-16T08:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/plymouth-mn-1102\/?p=719"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T15:37:18","slug":"the-most-dangerous-risks-in-your-business-dont-swim-on-the-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/plymouth-mn-1102\/blog\/the-most-dangerous-risks-in-your-business-dont-swim-on-the-surface\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Dangerous Risks in Your Business Don’t Swim on the Surface"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SwimmerOn the surface, the water looks completely calm\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s what makes Shark Week so compelling every single year. The danger is never the thing you can see. It’s what’s already moving underneath \u2014 quiet, patient, and aimed at exactly the right moment.<\/p>\n

Cybercriminals operate the same way.<\/p>\n

The threats businesses face right now aren’t dramatic. They don’t announce themselves. They’re designed to blend in with normal operations \u2014 to look like a routine email, a familiar vendor, a standard approval request \u2014 right up until the moment something breaks, money moves, or systems go down.<\/p>\n

And during the summer? When schedules shift, employees travel, and oversight gets thinner? Attackers know the water is at its calmest. That’s when they’re most active. \ud83d\ude2c<\/p>\n

Here are three ways they’re circling your business right now.<\/p>\n

1. Fake Invoices and Vendor Impersonation<\/h2>\n

In most cases, attackers don’t need to hack anything. They just need to send one believable email.<\/p>\n

This is called Business Email Compromise<\/strong>, or BEC<\/strong>. It works by impersonating a vendor, supplier, or executive your team already trusts. The email arrives looking completely normal. Someone on your team processes the payment. And by the time anyone realizes the request wasn’t legitimate, the money is gone.<\/p>\n

These attacks spike during vacation season for one very specific reason: when the person who normally approves payments is out, requests get rerouted to people who don’t always know what “normal” looks like. Temporary stand-ins are less likely to question urgency. Attackers know exactly which buttons to push.\u00a0 And boy, do they push them.<\/p>\n

The fix is simple and costs nothing:<\/strong> build a verification step for any financial request that arrives via email. A quick confirmation call to a known<\/em> number \u2014 not the number listed in the suspicious email \u2014 stops most of these before they go anywhere.<\/p>\n

One phone call. That’s often the entire difference. <\/soapbox><\/p>\n

2. Phishing Attacks That Target Distracted Employees<\/h2>\n

Phishing works because it’s engineered around how people behave when they’re busy. Not careless. Not uninformed. Just busy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Cybercriminals design these moments deliberately. A distracted employee sees a password reset notification and clicks the link without thinking. Someone gets a text that looks like it came from IT. An email lands right before a meeting asking for urgent approval on a wire transfer. Nobody stops to verify because stopping feels like losing time.<\/p>\n

The most effective protection here isn’t a software solution. It’s culture.<\/p>\n

People need to feel genuinely comfortable slowing down when something seems off \u2014 without worrying it’ll make them look inexperienced or difficult. That means treating these as worthy of a pause:<\/p>\n