Cybersecurity Expert

Written by Sean Tilley, Senior Sales Director EMEA at  11:11 Systems   Cyber downtime carries measurable financial consequences, and those consequences are becoming clearer with each major incident.  Research from 11:11 Systems  shows that 78% of European organisations report losses of up to $500,000 per hour following a cyber-related outage, while 6% face costs exceeding £1 million per hour. When recovery extends beyond containment, the disruption begins to register in revenue performance, contractual exposure, and customer stability rather than remaining confined to the technology function. For UK leadership teams, the issue centres on continuity of income, fulfilment of obligations, and the strength of customer relationships under strain.   Recovery delays compound risk Half of organisations surveyed require between one and two weeks to fully recover from a cyber incident. Over that period, cost exposure builds in ways that are rarely reflected in early estim...

     A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, June 2021. How was UK Government Building CCTV Leaked? The  Sun newspaper published CCTV workplace footage of Health Secretary Matt Hancock, kissing aide Gina Coladangelo  on 6th May 2021, the fact both are married to different people fuelled several days of sensational headlines. Given Matt Hancock has led the charge on directing the UK's COVID rules, his position in government quickly became untenable, resigning a few days later after the story broke. However, the big security concern here, is how was internal UK government building CCTV footage obtained by an external reporter?   CCTV Leaked from UK Gov Buildings is a security concern The Northern Ireland secretary,  Brandon Lewis,  summed up the security concern when he said  “t he security and privacy of government business mean min...

Article by  Beau Peters As a freelancer in any industry, you are likely more susceptible to hackers and cybercrime than many other professions. Not only are you pulling in a constant stream of customer data, but as a worker on the go, you likely work exclusively in the digital realm with all of your information in the online space. That means that you are basically presenting data on a silver platter for cybercriminals to find and use for malicious purposes. If you take your business seriously, then cybersecurity needs to be your top priority , not only for your clients but also for the stability of your own enterprise. Luckily, you can stay out of the way of cybercriminals by implementing a few basic security features along with an understanding of common threats. We’ll explain both solutions below. Protect Client Data It is important to remember that just about any piece of client data can be used by cybercriminals to cause havoc. Credit card and social security numbers are espec...

How do you know company data is secure?   How do organisations know their data is secure? And how can companies ensure that a network breach won’t result in a loss of sensitive data? The consequences of a data breach are potentially disastrous for any organisation, so companies need to be reassured that their data is secure at all times in line with any internal and external compliance needs - and that they have the tools and visibility to prove this, should a network breach occur. With 78% of IT security leaders lacking confidence in their company’s cybersecurity posture, now is the time for organisations to focus on applying a ‘Zero Trust’ approach to their cybersecurity strategy. In doing so, security professionals acknowledge that they cannot trust the security of their underlying infrastructure and therefore implement controls from a data assurance perspective, placing emphasis on protecting their sensitive data, irrespective of where this data travels within the network. And...

Last year, a Which? investigation found that 31% of resold smartphone models from three of the major used and refurbished handset stores are no longer receiving security updates. Phone manufacturers only schedule data updates for a certain period after the release of a model, so those looking for an additional bargain in older devices could be putting themselves at risk. As well as security issues, second-hand smartphones that haven’t been wiped by their previous user can still contain sensitive data. Without following the proper steps, anybody considering selling their old phone on eBay or another marketplace could be exposed to fraud in numerous ways. How to Ensure Security When Buying a Phone Phone manufacturers often release information on their security updates, so checking your chosen model is still receiving these updates is essential to remain secure once you start using your new phone. The length of time phones are updated varies by manufacturer and by model. For example, App...

  I ASME  del iv ers Cyber Essentials on behalf of UK  NCSC By Sam Jones | Cyber Tec Security  and Dave Whitelegg What is  Cyber Essentials?  If you are just hearing about the Cyber Essentials scheme, read on as we unpack 10 things you might not know about Cyber Essentials. 1. UK Gov Launched Cyber Essentials in 2014 The UK Government  National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) published its ‘10 Steps to Cyber Security in 2012' , after the UK Government agencies recognised small-medium sized UK businesses require further cybersecurity guidance and support in order to protect the British digital dependant economy.  This led to the development of five critical 'cyber essentials' technical security controls which provides a minimum level of cybersecurity protection. Assurance of the adoption of these five security controls by an organisation provides a good degree of confidence an organisation is protected against the most common cyber threats, th...

The most important and integral part of any data security begins with having firewalls installed in the environment. Not just that, installing firewalls is an essential requirement of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS ). However, simply installing a firewall on the network perimeter will not make your organization PCI DSS compliant. PCI DSS draws out specific requirements pertinent to firewalls under requirement 1 and its sub-requirements on how firewalls should be installed, updated, maintained along with other firewall rules. Elaborating more on this, we have explained in this article basic PCI DSS firewall requirements, and the need for small businesses to install firewalls. But before getting into the details of it, let us first understand the meaning of a PCI DSS compliant firewall. What is a PCI DSS Compliant Firewall? Firewalls are used to segment or isolate networks and are an essential component to   limit cyber threats and protect internal networks...