Security - It's not a dirty word...

As my learned colleague Bryn Abbott always advises when I get frustrated about 2FA - Security isn't a dirty word - but crevice is...

Should businesses be worried?

The short answer to this is YES.

The real question to this though, is can you afford for your business to be unoperational for hours, days, weeks or even longer?!

That's the very real threat when it comes to security, if you are not protecting your business, then you're inviting the scammers, hackers and bad guys, to attack everything you've worked so hard to build.

So now you're thinking...

What can I do to protect my business?

There are tonnes of things you could be doing, some are very easy to action, some are free, some cost money, but what value do you put on your business staying open?

• Enable Two Factor Authentication on emails

If you're not already adding this second layer of security to your emails, you need to as soon as possible. Without 2FA you're opening yourselves up to your passwords being brute forced, then when they're in they could cause havoc with accounts teams, suppliers and customers.

• Utilising a password manager

We use 1Password The One Point , in essence it allows us to store incredibly complex passwords, which you'd never remember in a month of Sundays! Also, you can add in your 2FA into 1Password, so you have a password manager and 2FA in one place!

• Obtain Cyber Essentials

This is a basic certification, which means as a business you are serious about your security, it shows your customers and suppliers you're a trustworthy company to deal with. By having your Cyber Essentials certification in place, you have to make some changes, lock down some ports etc. By doing this you are mitigating some of the risks of the most common attacks.

THE COLD HARD FACTS

• A survey conducted in 2017 by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank based in London, showed that only about one in four businesses believe themselves vulnerable to a cyber-attack. For most large businesses, it's not a matter of if they are going to be attacked but when and how often.
• The number of phishing attack victims increased by 34% in 2021, and remains the most common form of cyber crime.
• 3 out of 4 organizations fell victim to a ransomware attack, up 61% from 2020.

What can I do now?

Ultimately, your MSP can tell you hundreds of times that you need to do X,Y and Z. Even if you put in the simple measures, you can still be vulnerable..

Cyber Security awareness among your employees is key, do they think twice about clicking on that spurious link? Do they get an email from the MD saying send money here - only for it not to be the MD. Your full business needs to be aware of the risks, from admin all the way up to MD/CEO.

At The One Point we offer a free security audit that looks at your whole team and their security habits and can include training as part of an overall plan to improve security measures.

#Security #2FA #Cyberattack #CyberProtection #Antivirus