Austen Clark, managing director of Scottish IT specialists Clark Integrated Technologies says that ransomware demand can be commercial suicide for a business, as it has the potential to ruin its reputation, send share prices plummeting and it may struggle to recover from the damage done.
Austen’s advice is simple - prevention is better than cure.
A major UK business survey revealing that a fifth of British businesses have been hacked by cyber criminals hammers home the need for all firms to ramp up their defences against cybercrime.
With only a quarter of firms surveyed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) saying their business has security measures in place to guard against hacking, Austen Clark of Clark Integrated Technologies warns that too many firms could be exposing themselves to the very real danger of being hit by cybercrime.
Telecommunications are at the heart of modern business transactions; the evolution of telecoms has allowed all sizes of business to reach marketplaces which would have been unfeasible generations before. An independent jewellery artist can now produce bespoke pieces of jewellery on a farm in Nantwich, custom ordered and ready to deliver to a skyscraper in Tokyo within a few days. Our world is getting smaller and more accessible every day and businesses are able to reach wider audiences simultaneously. This is mostly thanks to the Internet, but in order to connect to and use the World Wide Web businesses and consumers need to have sufficient capability in their Telecoms. In Aberdeenshire and other remote areas of the UK, reliable, high-speed fixed line telecoms are more difficult to acquire. What options are available?
Austen Clark, managing director of Clark Integrated Technologies in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, warns businesses to be on their guard against mobile device phishing attacks.
Through staff awareness and training, he says that organisations can help combat the growing menace.
Mr Clark comments: “Hackers and cyber criminals work like water and will always find the cracks and vulnerabilities. It is an organisation’s responsibility to be aware of these fissures and protect or fill them.
Following on from our previous article, this is a brief Scenario concerning using “Hybrid” storage for backup.
When it comes to passwords and internet security, sometimes the simpler solutions are actually the best.
Let’s take a closer look at how to truly safeguard the information you value most.
We are often told how essential it is to create numerous complex passwords, and that they should be used uniquely across all our internet applications. The logic behind this decision may seem flawed, but it is rooted in real fears.
However, in practice, having too many passwords can be a terrible headache – not to mention a potential security risk. What if you forget your vital passwords? What if you write them down and misplace the note? What if someone else finds your passwords and accesses your accounts?
Advice for many years has been to simply memorise your passwords instead of storing them. People have been told that storing passwords in any form is inherently a high-risk activity.
While we encourage the use of password managers (alongside recommendations from the National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC), interest in this tech has remained low. Yet the recommends a refreshed approach to passwords. Would it work for you?
NCSC suggests that established thinking around password creation is flawed, because it expects the end-user (us) to memorise numerous lengthy passwords.
Instead of taking this approach, it may make more sense to instead opt for three ‘random’ words – strong enough to work on many different platforms, and to not be guessed by aspiring hackers – but not so obscure that you can’t remember them, either!
The strategy is informed by real-world customer behaviour, making it a little more grounded and practical in scope.
Key areas to consider with this approach include:
Of course, no password solution is entirely failsafe. There is always the possibility this approach could be seen as weaker than completely randomised password approaches, though the NCSC argues this is not entirely true.
Instead, the randomisation and length of the passwords could in fact be considerably stronger and more targeted than some passwords that are traditionally considered as efficient, but are actually incredibly easy to guess and exploit.
To find out more about the topic, head for the official National Cyber Security Centre website. Get practical help with your cybersecurity by contacting our expert team.
