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It seems there is a modern perception across many industries that employees are the weakest links in IT security. And, Technology news website ‘The Next Web’ writes that “given the ever-increasing frequency of data breaches – with human error often being a cause or catalyst – you’d be forgiven for thinking that employees are naturally at fault.”

With the current coronavirus crisis forcing able businesses to work remotely, and the media reporting increased cybercrime in light of the pandemic, it’s vital that organisations brush up on security and fix any chinks in their security chain.

First though, they must first identify what the real weaknesses are.

Blaming employees for breaches in security is easier than blaming technology. Human error is normally down to the actions of a single person, whereas software failure is more complicated to explain; is it the fault of the software creators, the department managing it or the boardroom members who agreed to implement it?

More often than not, the real culprits of security breaches are neither employees nor technology alone; but rather an inefficient security strategy and an unfocused company culture.

If organisations want their employees to take cyber security seriously, they must invest both time and money in building a security strategy and implementing appropriate software. A well-built security strategy will consider and take input from all aspects of the business. Chris Pogue, IT Pro Portal, explains that “a security programme cannot be successful without the commitment, support, evangelisation, and participating of everyone within your organisation”.

Once the strategy development is underway, the next – and most important – step is to adapt the company culture to centre around that strategy.

By rooting the security programme into the company culture, employees will begin to adopt the learnings and processes into their daily working routines and have much more respect for business security. And, SC magazine advises that “leaders need to do themselves what they tell their employees to do, even if it’s inconvenient”. If managers preach the importance of security measures and then cut corners themselves, employees may exercise defiance and ignore protocols.

The lesson here? A complete security strategy that is rooted within the company culture could enable employees to become powerful assets to business security, instead of perceived weak links

It seems rare that the media isn’t carrying news of some sort of cyber security issue. And, during the current COVID-19 pandemic, cybercriminals are taking advantage more than ever. March saw the reporting of Virgin Media’s data breach, affecting 900,000 customers. This was due to an unsecured database being accessible online. In Virgin Media’s case the damage was limited, as the database was used for marketing. However, security breaches like this can have far more serious results for the company and those whose details have been stolen, with potential loss of reputation and financial repercussions due to fines or loss of business. TechRadar reported this week that the threat of cyberattacks has increased significantly due to cybercriminals registering a huge number of coronavirus-related domains through which to offer discounts and special promotions.

TechRadar quoted Check Point’s Head of cyber research Yaniv Balmas, who said: “Furthermore, we are seeing hackers using the attention on COVID-19 to spread their harmful “goods” in as many places as possible through COVID-19 specials and discounts on the dark net. The end result is more malicious tools in more wrong hands during this unique period of time, which puts us all more at security risk during the COVID-19 pandemic”.

With the regular news reports on data breaches for the household name brands, and the increasing targeting by cybercriminals on individuals and the SMB sector, it is more important than ever to secure your business and become aware of the threats.

Phishing emails
Phishing emails – when an employee is tricked into revealing personal information or clicking on a malicious link – are still used widely by cybercriminals. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2019, highlights that of the 32% of businesses and 22% of charities reporting a cyber security breach or attack in the previous 12 months, 80% of businesses identified a phishing attack as the most common cause, and charities put the figure at 81%.

In addition to phishing, there is vishing (with the fraudulent message conveyed via phone or voice message), and smishing (where text messages carry the criminal messaging), and pharming (which sees cybercriminals pointing to fake websites set up to resemble genuine sites).

Preventing cybercrime
Staff training, training, and more training is a vital weapon in the fight against cybercrime. But, one of the main problems with dealing with phishing type attacks is that it’s human nature to try and please and do one’s job well – and particularly when in a busy office environment, and if the request seems to come from a senior exec.

So layering security services is essential. Just as cybercriminals are continually developing methods of attack, so are the solutions and services from the cyber security industry continually evolving to counteract the attacks.

Contact us now to find out how we can help you with security solutions that can keep your business safe both during this unique situation and long-term. Email : hello@vibework.com

Tel: +442071129280

2019 was a record year for the amount spent on cloud services worldwide; $107 billion, to be exact. The monumental statistic, pulled from TechRadar research and published in a recent article by ETF Trends, is reported to be a whopping 37% increase on the 2018 spend. The snowball effect of cloud adoption is indicative of the many benefits that cloud computing offers.

Eliminating the need for on-premises infrastructure (and associated upfront and ongoing maintenance costs), more and more businesses are realising the benefits of moving to cloud services. With cloud, businesses also remove the issues arising from providers ending support for a product, and the often complex requirements surrounding version or feature upgrades.

This move to the cloud is happening across all industries regardless of organisation size: businesses are realising that whatever their market sector, in order to remain competitive, they need to take advantage of the latest technology – and that lies with cloud.

But, of course, not everything needs to happen at once. A great deal of the increase in adoption of cloud services is due to organisations utilising hybrid solutions, with many cloud-based services and solutions integrating with on-premises services.

The trend is definitely heading upwards for the move to the cloud, though, and the more businesses experience the benefits of individual solutions and services in the cloud, the more they want to extend those advantages to other areas of the business. Indeed, the ETF Trends article goes on to say that market analysts, Canalys, predicts that in just 4 years’ time organisations will be spending $248bn globally on cloud infrastructure and services.

‘Cloud service offerings can be very confusing to understand, and you may not know where to start or how to develop. We can help with advice and guidance, so call us if you’d like details about our cloud services, or more information about the benefits of ‘cloud’ and how it can suit your business.’

Email : hello@vibework.com
Tel: +442071129280

‘Flexible working’ and ‘home working’ are relatively new buzzwords.

But, with today’s sky-high costs for office locations, less rigidly defined workplace environments are becoming very commonplace. The use of hot-desking is growing, and with many businesses choosing to cut down on the total number of permanent desks available, there are often not enough desks to accommodate a full workforce on any one day.

While some employees may be out visiting customers, partners, suppliers, etc., any number may also be working from home.

Whilst office cost is a large factor, home working may also be through choice – the need for some peace and quiet away from a noisy office or to concentrate on that customer quote/ proposal. Instead, it might be childcare commitments, the boiler repair man, or a car MOT that may make a morning or afternoon at home essential and reduce any unnecessary stress.

And flexible working isn’t just the ‘where’: many people choose to work in the evening or early in the morning, when children are asleep or when they can enjoy the comfort of their own homes instead of a semi-deserted office.

And of course, businesses need to be able to continue working and ensure business continuity with as little slow down in productivity as possible, when hit by unplanned disruption. Traffic problems, train strikes, and snowfall can all affect employees’ ability to travel to the office, while the rapid spread of Covid-19, or coronavirus, has caught the whole world off guard. The BBC reports an estimate of up to one in five workers in the UK being off work at any one time, during the peak of the coronavirus epidemic, and naturally businesses are doing all they can to safeguard their workforce. In many cases this involves allowing or even enforcing employees to work from home and enabling those who are self-isolating to do so.

With today’s technology, flexible working is easily achievable and many businesses that support it are thriving. Sophisticated solutions and services can now enable employees to continue working seamlessly as if in the office, with access to files and applications, collaboration tools, meeting and calling features.

Call us now to find out how flexible working could help your business.

Email : hello@vibework.com

Tel: +442071129280

Have you selected the study? Do you like the living room? Maybe you’re keen on the kitchen?

With week 4 of the UK lockdown well underway, and little sign of the current ‘stay at home’ rules being lifted any time soon, many people have now established an office set up in their homes that’s more permanent than temporary. But which room in the house is your chosen one? And, more importantly, which room could potentially be the worst choice?

The ideal environment

For most, the ideal home working environment conjures images of a cosy study or fully equipped computer desk in a vacant room. Yet for full-time office workers, dedicated home office space has rarely been a requirement or even an option. A recent survey, conducted by cloud distributor Vuzion, found that a desk in the spare bedroom is the single most popular option for employees; it’s out of the way, doesn’t need to be vacated at night and doesn’t serve another purpose!

Popular options

Whilst the spare bedroom took the most votes, the kitchen and dining room also proved popular as working spaces. “The kitchen is particularly suitable for cognitively demanding work” states productivity expert Jonas Altman, cited by the Telegraph; it’s not overly comfortable to sit at a kitchen table or countertop for longer than a few hours, so should enable shorter but more focused bursts. The kitchen is also home to the glowing warmth of the fridge. Whether that’s a pro or a con is up to you to decide!

The dining rooms tends to offer more space to spread out and, as a room used only for meals, can offer peace and quiet that might be sparsely found elsewhere in the house. Like the kitchen, though, you may end up being interrupted regularly if you need to work during mealtimes.

Rooms to avoid

Whilst opening your laptop in bed with a cup of tea might sound like the dream, the reality of working in your bedroom could be severe lack of motivation and maybe even trouble sleeping. Working where you sleep could lead to feeling even more isolated than you already are during lockdown. Also, associating the stresses of work with the joys of rest could easily lead to sleepless nights, and negative feelings towards your beloved bed.

The living room has similar downsides; whilst it might seem appealing to get comfy on the sofa, muddying the waters between work and downtime could be detrimental to productivity and happiness. Also, according to TechRadar, the living room is “potentially the busiest room in the house, with the sofa a magnet for family members”. Distractions and interruptions in the living room are inevitable, leaving you unfocused and unproductive.

Wherever you’ve chosen to set up your workspace during lockdown, we can help you make sure home working works for you. Talk to us to understand what solutions are available to enable remoting working and help you work the same, if not better, as when you were in the office.

News of a cyberattack is never far from the front pages of the press.

Cyber criminals are becoming increasingly more resourceful, discovering and exploiting new threat avenues in the developing age of digital business transformation. Online newspaper, The Leader, recently warned of an expected ‘sky-rocket’ in cyberattacks, and UK ISP (Internet Service Provider) Beaming reported that UK companies on average dealt with 66 attacks per hour in 2019.

But of course, while cyber criminals are growing ever more resourceful, so too are the solutions to fight back.

Services and applications to prevent attacks are increasing in sophistication, and there’s growing recognition that responsibility for identifying and implementing appropriate cyber security measures starts at the top – with a business’ senior executives, directors and boardroom members. In support of this, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) feels that ‘boardroom’ engagement is so vital, they’ve created the NCSC’s Board Toolkit – to help board members ‘get a little more technical’, and explore a range of cyber security topics and issues.

But, as no two businesses are the same, security measures appropriate for each business will indeed be as individual as the business itself. As the NCSC advises, “good cyber security is whatever protects the things you care about. This means that, whilst there is some good practice that applies in most situations, ‘good’ cyber security for one organisation may not be good for another. Good cyber security has to work for you; it has to be appropriate to your systems, your processes, your staff, your culture and, critically, has to be appropriate for the level of risk you are willing to accept.”

When considering the increasingly critical topic of cybersecurity, it’s essential to take the advice of IT experts and the advice they can offer on individual business requirements. While generic security measures are incorporated into the solutions and services created to meet the demands of today’s workplace and evolving threat landscape, and may be sufficient to meet basic requirements, taking a layered approach and implementing additional security measures may just keep your business safe and sound. Email hello@vibework.com or call us on +442071129280 to speak to an IT expert.