Cyber Security Threats to UK Small Businesses
The UK Government has set out its plans on how it intends to protect the country from Cyber Threats over the next 5 years in the publication of the National Cyber Security Strategy 2016-2021. The strategy describes a three-pronged objective to Defend, Deter and Develop, underpinned by International Action.
The 80-page strategy highlights even the very basic need for businesses to take greater ownership and responsibility for their digital information and the role they play in protecting their data. It pays particular reference to the CyberWise Campaign from 2013 which had a revival in 2015 under the new branding; CyberAware.
The best practice guidelines of CyberAware include
- Downloading Latest Software
- Using Strong Passwords
- Deleting Suspicious Emails
- Using Anti-Virus Software
- Training Your staff
There were also some other important findings highlighted in the strategy document which included…
“Just under a fifth of businesses had their staff take part in cyber security training in the past year.” – Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2016
“99.9% of exploited vulnerabilities were compromised more than a year after the vulnerability was published.” – Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigations Report
“We recently analysed 115,000 Cisco devices on the Internet and across customer environments as a way to bring attention to the security risks that aging infrastructure – and lack of attention to patching vulnerabilities present… We found that 106,000 of the 115,000 devices had known vulnerabilities in the software they were running.” – Cisco Annual Security Report 2016
The key message from the UK Government is that there are practical steps that every business can implement right away and through better education and heightened awareness we can all play our part in improving our security.
Discover more: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/567242/national_cyber_security_strategy_2016.pdf
