Cyber security advice for business: how secure is your data?

How secure is your data? 

It’s a question often relegated to the footnotes of meeting agendas, as the answer can often be the stuff of nightmares for senior management teams. 

With attacks rising at “an alarming rate” during the pandemic according to INTERPOL, understanding the nature of potential threats and the measures a business can take to mitigate these has never been more important. 

This is especially true when you consider that 48% of employees are less likely to follow safe data practices while working from home, while home networks are 3.5 times more likely than a corporate network to have at least one malware family. 

The best way to keep your data safe in the wake of all this change? Make sure cyber security works for your people. 

Basic, avoidable human error – clicking on a phishing link, for example – caused 90% of all data breaches in 2019, according to CybSafe after it analysed data from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Here’s what you can do to overcome that. 

A network capable of repelling attackers and keeping data secure should be the foundation of any business’s cyber security strategy. 

Simply ensuring key software is kept up to date, firewalls are correctly managed and resilient anti-virus protection is installed can go a long way to ensuring data safety.

For larger businesses, however, managing and monitoring your network for potential threats and breaches can come with complex infrastructure, staff training and legal requirements, all of which can dramatically increase the required levels of security and IT investment.

To keep their network and vital data secure, many businesses turn to suppliers that can deliver a complete managed security service. This relieves internal teams of the pressure to remain compliant and manage multiple levels of security infrastructure, all while juggling a shrinking budget. 

And once key internal resources are freed from managing and maintaining network security, it gives IT teams the opportunity to invest in activities that drive growth and improve efficiency for the business as a whole.

The biggest challenge to data security often lies with the people accessing sensitive information on a daily basis. 

As technology like cloud communication for remote working has become more widely available, opportunities for attackers to use human error as a means to gain access to secure data have increased exponentially.

Malicious attacks for the most part are only successful when an employee does something they shouldn’t have, whether that’s operating on an unsecure network, disclosing a password or clicking the wrong link in a suspicious email. Education is therefore essential. 

But while overall awareness of cyber security is improving year on year, only 27% of staff across business in the UK have attended cyber security training in the last 12 months back in 2019, according to a government report. 

These figures are a clear indication of why a business’ approach to cyber security should be organisation-wide, prioritising education and best practice as much as an investment in the latest security infrastructure and software.

Simply ensuring employees are aware of the latest cyber threats and the most common methods cyber criminals use to invade your business can make all the difference to overall data security. 

Once they know the red flags to look out for, your defence will be much stronger.

Need help keeping your data safe in a hybrid working world?

Head to our cyber security hub