Posts about Cyber Security

It will be no surprise to hear that the sophistication of everyday cyber threats is so much greater than a few years ago, and will no doubt be even more sophisticated in the years to come. To stay protected against known and emerging threats, organisations need to think smart and implement solutions and processes that not only respond to – but also detect attacks in real time.

Financial services organisations experienced three times the number of cyber security breaches in 2023 than in 2022.

When you think of the world of cyber and information security, what do you see? Is it a someone in a dark room, wearing a black hooded top, hunched over a computer with Matrix-style green code on the screen? Or, is it an office cleaner, wheeling a trolley full of sprays and cloths around desks as they scout a business – or someone who appears to be a health and safety inspector sneaking onto workers' computers to gather sensitive information? If you'd pictured the first scene, you're not alone. That's how the world at large tends to view cyber crime – and of course, much cyber crime is conducted by people sitting in front of computers. But if you'd pictured the second, then you'd be looking beyond that to the real lengths such criminals go to when trying to hack into organisations. And you’d also be picturing one of the unexpected and unique ways we at Wavenet can help your own company protect itself from devastating and costly attacks on its data. It's all part of our penetration testing service, and our Ethical Hacker and Principal Consultant, Rob Shapland explains more in this blog.

Approximately 97% of cyberattacks and data breaches could be prevented if organisations had comprehensive security measures in place.

With one in three UK businesses and one in four UK charities reporting a cyber breach or attack in the 12 months to April 2023,1 it’s fair to say that a significant portion of your customers are at very real risk of having their cyber security compromised. At the same time, there’s a significant gap in cyber security skills in the UK, meaning that even if your customers are aware of cyber threats, they may be struggling to address them.

Almost 70% of CEOs believe their network maturity level is impeding business progress.

The direct cost, recovery cost and long-term cost of security breaches are growing year-on-year. According to the 2022 Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 39% of UK businesses identified a cyber security breach or attack with the average cost of a data breach being between £4,200 and £19,400.

A critical element to the longevity and survival of any business is that they adopt an all-encompassing cyber security and disaster recovery strategy. Advancements in technology mean that the world is becoming more digitised and, as this trend grows, cyber-crime grows alongside it. From customer service to communication and accounting, there is a heavy reliance on technology for many enterprise operations. From hosted desktops to cloud backup and virtualisation, software and computing has become integral for every business. But as companies have become savvier, so have the cyber-criminals looking for vulnerabilities – there have been instances where sophisticated hackers have been able to orchestrate attacks without disrupting a business’s day-to-day operations.

A worrying number of UK businesses still are not aware of the benefits of the Government-backed Cyber Essentials scheme. This is problematic as according to the 2022 Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 39% of UK businesses identified a cyber security breach or attack with the average cost of a data breach being between £4,200 and £19,400. This is particularly concerning since 56% of businesses hold personal data on customers in the cloud. However, there are methods that can be implemented to reduce the risk of data breaches. One such way is through being Cyber Essentials accredited.