Clark IT has signed up to a new campaign to build safer business – and a stronger Scotland.
We’ve pledged our commitment to the Scottish Business Resilience Centre drive which has the backing of Police Scotland and Scottish Fire and Rescue.
This is a national network approach that’s committed to making businesses safe from fire, crime and, in our increasingly digital working lives, cybercrime.
Small businesses are far from immune from online fraud or cyber criminality and research shows that almost two-thirds of UK companies employing between 10 and 49 people – the equivalent of 130,000 businesses UK wide – fell victim to some form of cyber-crime last year. The average cost of cyberattacks to small businesses was £65,000 in damaged assets, financial penalties and business downtime.
In Scotland, research shows that 6 out of 10 small to medium sized-businesses (SMEs) which are victims of cyber-attacks do not recover, and close within six months.
Yet three quarters of SMEs in Scotland have spent nothing on cyber fraud prevention – the highest across the UK.
Clark IT welcomes this heightened awareness of the potential risks, and see this as a positive, pro-active approach to unite businesses, safeguard their interests and help build safer, stronger communities.
To assist SMEs in Scotland reduce their vulnerability to cyberattacks, the Scottish Government introduced CyberEssentials and CyberEssentials Plus.
As a trusted partner, Clark IT has helped many businesses towards gaining this important validation which aims to help organisations implement basic levels of protection against cyberattack, demonstrating to their customers that they take cyber security seriously.
There are two tiers to the scheme:
Cyber Essentials – an independently verified self-assessment. Organisations assess themselves against five basic security controls and a qualified assessor verifies the information provided.
Cyber Essentials PLUS – a higher level of assurance. A qualified and independent assessor examines the same five controls, testing that they work in practice by simulating basic hacking and phishing attacks.
Cyber Essentials has become a minimum requirement for bidding for some government contracts.
You’ll find Clark IT listed as one of the trusted suppliers on the Scottish Business Resilience Centre website.
You can also read more on cyber security for small businesses here:
www.sbrcentre.co.uk/services/cyber-security-guide-for-small-businesses/
