What are cyber attacks?
We keep hearing the words, cyber attacks, hacking, viruses, worms and malware. What does it all mean? More importantly, what can be done to help you to mitigate cyber attacks? By taking some simple steps you can protect your business, protect your data and take steps to prevent these attacks happening to you?
I know the first thing you will say is that my business is too small or of no interest to the computer hackers that trawl the Internet. First of all you are wrong, everyone who is a computer user is susceptible to a hacker, all they need is a vulnerability, and they are into your systems. There are loads of free hacking tools that any teenager can download and with a ‘YouTube’ tutorial, can start hacking for fun! Then there are the professional hackers, who will be in and out of your network without you ever knowing, causing all sort of carnage, or just taking your data.
What can you do to help yourself?
Back in 2014 the UK Government launched the Cyber Essential scheme to raise awareness and help businesses like yours to help mitigate cyber attacks. Cyber Essentials and its big brother Cyber Essentials plus comprises of 5 basic security controls policies that will mitigate 80% of on-line attacks
These control policies are:
- Boundary and Firewalls
- Secure Configuration
- Access Controls
- Malware Protection
- Patch Management
By implementing controls in each of the above areas, you can help to protect your business from computer hackers. A lot of you will not of heard of this scheme because it is still in its infancy. But if you tender for government work now or in the future you may find it is mandatory to have Cyber Essentials accreditation. If you tender for MOD work, who is the largest tendering organisation in the UK, then it is already mandatory.
To know more about Cyber Essentials then get in touch with Unleashed IT who are Cyber Essential consultants and can work with you to reach the required standards.
Give us a call today on 0333 240 0565
