In this month’s installment of our new leadership blog, "The Leader’s Circle", NetVU Chairman Brent Rineck, CPCU, CLU, ChFC, talks about dizzying technological advances and how agency leaders can cope and thrive in a world of innovation and change. "The pace of change is accelerating; there’s no doubt about that," he writes. "But it needn’t overwhelm us — although that is a danger if we don’t do a good job of managing technology at our firms." An avid runner and four-time qualifier for the Boston Marathon, Brent likes to look at leadership from the perspective of preparing for a race. He gives marathon-related pointers for being the agent of change at your firm, including:

• "Be the regulator of change in your agency. Do you have a plan for introducing software updates and new releases at your agency? Are you being intentional about change so your staff isn’t overwhelmed?"
  
  
• "Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How are the users in your office adapting to change? Does the rollout of new software make sense from their perspective? Spend some time in your customers’ shoes."
  
  
• "Be flexible and adaptable. It’s not likely that you will last long as a leader if you are rigid in your thinking or determined to do things "your way." Good leaders will draw upon their experience and recognize patterns, but they also are willing to try new approaches."
  
  

Brent notes that the new name for NetVU’s spring conference, "Accelerate, powered by NetVU," is an apt description for how we must anticipate, navigate and shape change. "Acceleration need not be a scary word. In fact, it can be exhilarating — if we learn to manage it properly," he says.

With the 2018 tax season in full swing, AppRiver wants to make sure taxpayers are aware of the many dangers they see surrounding this event each year. In fact, curiosity and uncertainty surrounding recent tax law changes may leave many individuals more susceptible to falling victim to one of the many tax-themed attacks that are seen this time of year. These attacks come in many forms and aim to harvest users’ credentials, scam funds and infect individuals and corporate networks.

One malware campaign AppRiver has been tracking is targeting CPA firms to infect them with the Adwind RAT. The emails are somewhat vague and come with an infected archive that contains the Java-based Trojan that can infect cross-platforms. It is also capable of infecting not only Windows OS but also Linux, Mac and Android.

Once the infection has taken place, it can harvest and exfiltrate many forms of data from the victim. We also have seen some payload variation with this attack as some have been utilizing malicious URL’s embedded in PDF files.

Another attack takes aim at users of online tax service provider Taxslayer. These messages also are serving up malware with a malicious URL in the body of the message. These attacks are posing as privacy and security updates, which is a very common technique used to dupe end-users.

Messages like this one utilizing company official graphics, spoofed senders, security updates, etc… are sent by the millions and could APPEAR to come from a company or agency that are very familiar. As the deadline to file taxes approach, we anticipate a surge in these type of attacks.

Here are some tips from the National Cybersecurity Society to help you protect yourself this tax season.

• Reputable companies and/or tax agencies such as TaxSlayer, TurboTax, etc. will never send attachments in unsolicited email.
• If you get any notifications that require action on your end, reach out to the entity directly (not by email reply) for details.
• Be skeptical of any unsolicited emails or phone calls requesting personal information from you.
• For more tips to stay safe this tax season, check out  How to protect your company during tax season from The National Cybersecurity Society.