Why: A key component of cyber threat intelligence the ongoing education of you and your team. There are various way cyber criminals will potentially take advantage of any vulnerable points of weakness within your business. The Cyber Know scheme was designed by experts to produce a programme helping organisations with limited experience of cyber security to improve their knowledge and in return bolster their awareness and defences.

Why: Rather than keeping the same generic password for multiple log ins, the best practise is to use a password manager to save passwords, generate strong new ones and log into sites with one click. Password managers make it harder for cyber criminals to guess passwords or use passwords on compromised log in details that may have been captured through a successful phishing exercise.

Why: Rather than keeping the same generic password for multiple log ins, the best practise is to use a password manager to save passwords, generate strong new ones and log into sites with one click. Password managers make it harder for cyber criminals to guess passwords or use passwords on compromised log in details that may have been captured through a successful phishing exercise.

Why: The main objective of penetration testing is designed to identify the vulnerable security weaknesses within an organisations computer systems, network and other areas a cyber criminal may be able to gain access. Penetration testing, also known as Pen testing or ethical hacking, can be used to also incorporate within an organisations security policy and compliance framework. Testing can be done manually by a human as well as utilising software programmes to do the same.

Why: To protect sensitive data held within your business, provide e-mail protection for employees against Trojan attacks and improve online security, having an anti-virus protection software is key to keeping your business from being targeted with malware. As much as you might be able to prevent the vast majority of Trojan attacks, it only takes one successful attempt by a cyber criminal to breach your first line of defence which can lead to huge implications to the data you hold and day to day business operations.

Why: Cyber criminals use ransomware to try to hold your business to ransom by attempting to access your file storage and encrypting the data through laptop, PC or mobile telephone. A common tactic used by cyber criminals is to encrypt data held by your business by breaching your security to gain access to your network systems and demanding a payment in Bitcoin to release the data back to you. A simple installation of an anti-ransomware software can add a well needed extra layer of protection and act as a form of threat intelligence.

Why: A firewall can protect your business against a cyber criminal depositing any type of malicious code by acting as a barrier between your internal business network and the internet. Without a Firewall, access to your business network can be readily accessible to hackers who are looking to gain access to sensitive data held on your network. A Firewall will monitor and inspect traffic incoming and outgoing, look to block virus’, worms and spam and can be set to prevent access to certain web sites.

Why: A data back up of your business assets is always a great way to build a contingency against the ever-changing landscape of cyber-attacks endured by small business. Keeping a copy of your data is recommended by most, if not all, cyber security consultants, and often multiple back ups is used a cyber security strategy. A very fast way to restore lost or stolen data is simply for a back up to kick in and replace to minimise business interruption.

Why: By using an external benchmarking security rating, you can compare your business security protocol against your peers in the same industry all by just entering your URL. Understanding where you stand today gives you a clear pathway to increasing your first line defence against any potential cyber-attacks.