You're Not Too Small To Get Hacked

Scammers Learned Your Playbook

The same psychological plays you use in a subject line or an ad hook (urgency, curiosity, trust, fear) are exactly what scammers use to hijack your team's judgment. Cybercrime isn't a technical problem first. It's a persuasion problem and marketers should recognize the playbook faster than anyone. Cyberattacks are at a peak in Q4 because of the high volume of online shopping, limited staff, higher charity appeals and holiday delivery scams.

1. Name the feeling.
Before your team acts on an "urgent" invoice, a scary Slack message, or a too-good creator DM, ask, what feeling is this trying to create in me? Fear, urgency and curiosity are the three most common levers. If you feel rushed, that's the scam working, not a coincidence.

2. Lock down the two things that actually break brands.
It's not exotic hacks, it's business email compromise and account takeover. Your brand's ad accounts, social logins, and email domain are the assets that carry your reputation. Require 2FA everywhere, and set a verbal code word for any request to change payment details or move budget.

3. Verify through a second channel, always.
Got a wire request, a vendor change, or a "quick favor" from a client that feels off? Call them back on a known number before you act. This one habit kills most invoice fraud and deepfake impersonation attempts before they cost you anything.

4. Rehearse it before it happens.
Run a 15-minute tabletop with your team: "our Instagram just got locked out" or "someone spoofed our CEO's email asking for gift cards." Decide now who freezes what account and who calls whom. Under pressure, people default to whatever they rehearsed, not whatever they should logically do.

Your brand's trust is the attack surface. Protect it the same way you'd protect any high-value marketing asset. Check out our latest podcast with John Dwyer, as he digs deep into cybersecurity and how you can protect your team and your business.

Cybercrime is no longer just a big-company problem. If you own a business, manage a team or handle money, John Dwyer, Vice President of Cloud and AI Security Services at Coalfire, says you are already in the blast radius. The scams are getting faster, smarter and cheaper to run.

In this episode, Chris and John discuss what small and mid-sized businesses actually need to worry about right now. From deepfake payment fraud and business email compromise to ransomware, typosquatting and AI-driven scams, this episode cuts through the fear and gets specific about what really matters.

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Worth a look if your team still shares login credentials over Slack or email, or if you've ever had that scary moment wondering who still has access to your accounts.

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