Richard Shuker, TMB's technical director, looks at the increasing importance of cyber security for businesses.
There’s no doubt that cyber crime and security have become huge topics for the IT industry and the business community more generally over the last few years.
Ransomware has become a huge criminal industry, and we now read that hackers are even enjoying managed office space, holiday entitlements and better weather whilst they work to disrupt legitimate businesses in the UK and across the world.
For many small businesses without IT expertise this raises many questions.
What’s the real risk? Can I get away with doing nothing? If I do invest, then how do I know that the improvements will be effective and value for money? The list goes on…
Keeping Up With Cyber Crime
Now security has always been a game of cat and mouse. I remember working as an engineer in the 90s with my Dr Solomon’s Magic Bullet on floppy disk (here's a press release about it, circa 1998), which I used to remove old boot sector viruses. It seems quaint on reflection.
I think it’s fair to say that the recent outbreaks of ransomware have highlighted many issues around both awareness and investment within the UK business community, as well as shortcomings in the products and services available in the market to tackle ransomware. This is particularly true of protecting email systems, which is by far the most common attack vector for ransomware, phishing attacks and CEO fraud.
At TMB, we have been working hard to bring best-of-breed and cost effective security solutions to our clients for many years, and I’m very excited and pleased with the enhanced product set that we have available nowadays. Moreover, our achievement in becoming audited to the Gold IASME standard and achieving recognition as a certification body for the government's Cyber Essentials programme puts us in prime position to help existing and prospective clients.
In short, this allows us to assess and benchmark businesses against a defined government standard for security. It enables our customers to market this distinction throughout their own supply chain, using the accreditation as business development/sales tool in its own right.
Doing Your Part
Keeping your business safe from cyber crime isn't just a case of installing the right tools and then forgetting about it. It's also a matter of culture: you and your team should continue to follow best practice when it comes to things like password management, email security and data protection.
As part of our services, we'll point you in the right direction, but it's vital that you do your part too. With the right mixture of professional assistance and personal responsibility, small- and medium-sized businesses can effectively minimise their chances of falling victim to cyber crime.
