Keeping you safe online
Keeping you safe against cyber crime
The risk from cyber criminals is now perceived as the most serious threat to businesses and organisations with an estimated cyber attack every 47 seconds in the UK. As cyber-criminals become ever cleverer, it is essential that you take action to defend yourself, your business and your data from the attacks launched against you. A cyber attack does not only put your finances at risk. Your reputation is at risk too, with clients increasingly unwilling to place their trust in a business that has been the victim of data theft or has experienced service downtime after an attack.
BCNS has a team of IT professionals who can help you with cybersecurity. The first step is understanding what risks your business faces, and the systems and processes you already have in place. Once we understand those aspects, we can work with you to strengthen your cybersecurity. Some threats are generic, like email scams, while others may be targeted directly at your business, such as an impersonation attack where someone pretends to be a client or member of staff to extract money from you.
We run Cyber Essentials - to find out more, click the link HERE.
Cybersecurity audit
We will go through an audit with you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your IT infrastructure and security systems. This will help us identify the specific threats to your business and we can then work with you to put in place cybersecurity to minimise those risks. The audit includes looking at how secure your data is, your back-up and recovery systems, staff training, physical and technical security, IT management and any legal and contractual obligations.
An audit is a very useful process taking around one day and is often used by organisations to pinpoint where they are most at risk and to put in place training and cybersecurity to mitigate the risks from external agents and from unintentional risk from their own employees. GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) call for stiff penalties in case of a breach or hack resulting in lost personal data. One way to mitigate the consequences of a breach is to show that your organisation has followed government initiatives and taken the necessary steps to protect personal data to the extent possible.
A cybersecurity audit sets you off on the right foot by providing the basic cybersecurity groundwork on which to build your business.
Total email protection
Email is a key communication tool for your staff, suppliers and clients – which makes it a prime tool for cyber-criminals. Email cybercrime is the most common form of attack, costing millions of pounds every year. Criminals will use a variety of techniques including malicious links, malicious attachments, fake webpages, and spoofed names and addresses to get people to click on their email. You’ll hear a lot about social engineering and spoofing because criminals are using these tactics to convince people that the email is genuine.
BCNS can install and manage email protection software that will guard against suspicious emails. These will help filter out spam emails as well as phishing emails, where the emails contain malicious links or attachments, or even ransomware. What we would see as junk email can actually be very dangerous indeed. Phishing is an attack or threat that uses fraudulent messages to steal money and information such as bank details, which is then used in other types of fraud. In 2019, phishing was the most common cybercrime. Spear phishing is when the criminal does their research and targets the scam at a particular person, making emails look very convincing.
Ransomware and trojan emails are forms of malware, used to block your files, your operating system or allow hackers to take over your computer. The hackers then hold you to ransom, denying you access to your own data or systems until you pay.
To truly avoid email fraud, you need to use email protection software AND to train your employees. Email is the main threat that any business faces but BCNS can help you defend yourself.
Data back-up and recovery
Imagine losing your data – how would your business manage? For many organisations, losing their data would be disastrous. BCNS can put back-ups in place to ensure that your data is reliably saved and stored, as well as helping you with disaster recovery planning.
The loss of data can be caused by accidental deletion, hardware or software failures, natural disasters such as a fire or a flood at your premises, but it could also be as a result of a malicious attack.
Our backup and disaster recovery solutions give you constant access to your files, a quick and easy recovery process to get you back up and running, and peace of mind that your data is safe.
Password management and 2 factor authorisations
Hackers can get past passwords very quickly, especially when most people use the same basic password for everything. BCNS can put password management tools in place for employees and require regular password changes. We can also introduce 2-factor authentications on your most important systems to make it considerably harder for cyber criminals to access them.
Employee Training
We all know that the biggest risk to cybersecurity is the people in our organisations. Hackers and scammers are well practised at tricking people into clicking on links or giving away vital information.
BCNS can help you protect your business by providing tailored training programmes in cybersecurity.