Is your business I.T INFRASTRUCTURE safe?
Early 2022 President Putin invaded neighbouring country Ukraine and the war has ravaged these last few months but aside from the usual missiles and bullets there's a more secret almost invisible war being waged against the entire world and the effects could be much more devastating - CYBER ATTACKS!
Many businesses rely on the Internet to survive from banking to trading, to advertising to the storage of valuable data including customer databases, inventories and more. So what happens if it gets taken out? What happens if the World Wide Web - crashes?
Russia has a wealth of hacking experience and is thought to be one of the world's cyber super powers in the global I.T arena and that means it may not be stopping at the use of weapons to wage its war against the west.
Everything we do is linked by the World Wide Web
Literally everything! Whoever you are from technology troglodyte to I.T Guru somewhere, some-how you rely on the World Wide Web!
Once a business system is penetrated successfully for the majority the worst outcome is bankruptcy and loss of employment but imagine losing control of electricity, water, gas... and airliner?
In the very real world of cyber terrorism the hacker is a dangerous opponent who could plunge a country into a state of anarchy from which it might not recover!
I can live without Netflix
Yes maybe you can but streaming media is just a tiny fraction of the damage hackers can do. imagine your pay, your savings all vanishing, your pension reduced to nothing or your products going mental as software updates become infected?
It's time to fight Cyber Crime!
Here are 5 ways you can ensure your business remains safe in these uncertain times!
- Ensure a quality cyber security policy is in place and highlights the dangers accordingly via suitable risk assessment
- Ensure staff change passwords regularly and use strong passwords
- Know who has access to your systems and ensure that they are also protecting your assets
- Tech staff the dangers of face to face hackers i.e. simply asking for their passwords (it does still happen!)
- Know who makes your website plug ins - these are often the first port of call for serious hackers
Last but not least
Ensure your business has a quality firewall and up to date anti-virus installed on user machines!
And finally some stats
- 43% of businesses identified cyber security breaches or attacks in the last year
- £16.1k is the average cost of a data breach for SMEs in the UK
- Up to 88% of UK companies have suffered breaches in the last 12 months. That is lower than Germany (92%), France (94%), and Italy (90%)
- 48% of UK organisations were hit by ransomware in the last year, according to Sophos. This is lower than the global average of 51%.
- 13% of UK organisations reportedly paid the ransom.
- 32% of UK companies have cybersecurity insurance that doesn’t cover ransomware.
- One in every 3,722 emails in the UK is a phishing attempt (20% higher than the global average)
- One small business in the UK is successfully hacked every 19 seconds
- Every day, there are 65,000 attempts to hack SMEs, around 4,500 of which are successful
- 33% of UK organisations say that they lost customers after a data breach
- The average remediation cost of a successful ransomware attack to UK enterprises is $840,000
- The average UK cybersecurity budget is around $900,000, compared to an average of $1.46 million globally, according to Hiscox
- Just 31% of UK organisations have done a cyber risk assessment in the last 12 months
Source fo stats: https://www.dbxuk.com/statistics/data-breach-statistics
