SMEs are prime targets for cyber criminals, but a new, free software from the Hong Kong Police Force can help to stop the scams. 

Launched on 10 January,  V@nguard is part of the e-GUARD project, developed jointly by the Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, the University of Hong Kong and a number of organizations that support SMEs including HKGCC.

V@nguard aims to detect suspicious emails, which are used by criminals to persuade employees to transfer money. Such scams caused more than HK$1.4 billion in losses to businesses in Hong Kong last year, with around 70% of the victims being SMEs. 

At the launch ceremony, Chief Inspector Zhang Weihao said that the amount of money lost by individual businesses can be as much as HK$100 million.

“Such a loss can be fatal to SMEs,” he said. “In terms of reputation, there is no way to calculate the loss.”

Norman Yeung, Chairman of the Chamber’s SME Committee, said that email scams were a major concern for local companies. 

“Fake emails are hard to spot, and businesses receive so many emails every day that it is difficult to check the sender’s information for each one,” he said. 

Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and often their fake emails are very convincing. V@nguard works by filtering emails and will notify users of risks from unknown senders. 

“Unlike large companies, many SMEs do not have their own IT departments,” Yeung said. “So we not only encounter problems such as email scams and ransomware, but we also don’t have the resources to fix the problem quickly.” 

This free and effective software for SMEs is therefore a very helpful tool, particularly given the increase in remote working since the pandemic, he added.

Currently, V@nguard only operates on email servers running on the Linux operating system. It is available for free download via https://cyberdefender.hk/security_tools/