How to tackle cyber security

Cyber security attacks are becoming an ever present threat to businesses in the UK, and the consequences of a cyber breach can be huge. Consequently, an article from Financier Worldwide gives companies advice on what to do and what not to do when tackling cyber security, also giving legal advice on the issue.

Currently, due to the Data Protection Act, which will soon be replaced by the broadly similar EU Data Protection Regulation, companies are expected to take appropriate action to protect their data and be wary of technological advancements which could threaten their data. If a company has taken appropriate measures to protect this data, then they are not at risk of a legal breach, as well as being subject to a cyber attack.

So what should organisations do to ensure they are within the legal limits of the Data Protection Act and protect their data from cyber infiltration? Here are some of the actions Financier Worldwide advise to take:

• Carry out a risk assessment to identify high risk areas and dedicate more resources to these areas
• Consider the risks over the whole company
• Consider that cyber security isn’t just technical measures, but employees can be one of the biggest risks to the company, so they need to be made aware
• External solutions such as using a cloud service could be beneficial
• Make your security policies easily available and easy to understand

And what companies should avoid doing:

• Tick boxing doesn’t solve the issue of risk
• Don’t consider cyber security as only an IT issue
• Don’t make cyber security management a one off task
• Properly review the contract terms of your cloud provider
• Don’t forget to plan properly for when, not if, there is a data security breach

With the EU’s new Data Protection Regulation being passed in the near future, companies could be imposed with far larger fines for a cyber security breach, so it more important than ever for businesses to take cyber security seriously.

At Perpetuity, we also realise the threat of cyber breaches and how it is becoming a global issue among governments and public/private sectors. Therefore, our current Security Research Initiative (SRI) project is on ‘Tackling Cyber Crime – the role of of private security’ in order to better understand what private security can do to address cyber crime, including the difficulties and opportunities cyber crime poses.

To read more about our current SRI project and access previous reports that are available, please click here.