Is It Time To Protect Your Business With Cyber Essentials?

The increasing frequency and severity of cyber-attacks mean it’s no longer enough to trust that you can defend against every potential attack. In fact, it’s almost inevitable that your business will suffer a data breach.

According to statistics from the Information Commissioner’s Office’s (ICO), there was a 19% increase in data security incidents in Q3 of 2017. It also notes that 815 incidents were reported between October and December 2017. This is a massive 41% rise on the same time in 2016.

These cyber-attacks occurred across many sectors in 2017. The education sector saw a spike in the number of incidents in which data was sent to the incorrect recipient. In the health sector, there was a 22% increase. The three main breach types were data posted or faxed to an incorrect recipient, data sent via email to an incorrect recipient and loss or theft of paperwork.

It is likely that the incidents in which data was sent to an incorrect recipient were preventable. Employees pose a significant threat to data security within organisations, not just maliciously but accidentally. To combat and prevent these occurrences, employees who handle sensitive data must have the correct knowledge and a good understanding of information security and best practices.

Educate your employees and better protect your information assets

BCN is Cyber Essentials accredited. We can help your employees learn about the most important elements of information security and teach them how to avoid becoming a security liability. We can work with you to introduce internal policies on incident reporting and responses, and provide basic knowledge of information security best practices to reduce preventable mistakes.

Cyber Essentials is a Government-backed, industry-supported scheme to help businesses protect themselves against common online threats. Cyber Essentials is cost-effective and helps companies demonstrate to their customers and other stakeholders that they have implemented the most important basic cybersecurity controls.

The scheme offers a sound foundation of basic security measures that all types of organisations can implement and potentially build upon, and is estimated to have helped prevent around 80% of cyber-attacks.

For more information, speak to our experts today.