BEWARE: Small Businesses Become A Growing Target

Posted on 27 February27, 2017 by Martin Quinn martyq Security Blog Leave a comment

By Samantha Woollard (Internet Security Specialist) 27 February 2017

Small businesses believe that due to their size, they are an unlikely target for cyber attackers. But they could not be more wrong.

Perhaps ten years ago, when the chance of attack was much less than present day, it would be acceptable for businesses to think in that way.  Just because your company does not have a huge revenue does not mean it is obscured to attackers’ sight.  It is because of this reason that hackers have latched on to targeting smaller businesses; they are easier to penetrate due to the lack of security. Around 43% of cyber attacks target small businesses. This number has only been increasing in the past years and will continue to do so if nothing is done to stop it.

I can not emphasise more that the reason for an attack is not solely money. Loss of information and disruption can damage businesses and are also massive reasons for attack. Hackers want to destroy businesses and their reputations no matter if they have 2 employees or 20,000. It is estimated that over half of small businesses have not put any budget towards aiding their security and mitigating risks as they do not think that their business holds any valuable data. Even holding customers billing address, email address and phone numbers are classed as sensitive information and if you have promised your customers that this information will not be shared then it must be protected from theft.

After an attack, small companies can expect to lose an average of $1,150,000 and also expect an additional loss of an average of $1,250,000 due to disruptions within the business.

Do not wait to be hit by an attack to take action, by then the damage could be done. You can not just hope that you will not be a target, as now in 2017, no one is safe from the threats of cyber crime. Fortunately, Intact is here to help. Be prepared.

Relax. Your security is Intact.

Author: Intact Security

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Declassified Report States Russia’s Involvement In US Election

Posted on 16 January16, 2017 by Martin Quinn martyq Security Blog Leave a comment

By Samantha Woollard (Internet Security Specialist) 16 January 2017

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, enforced a campaign to sway the votes in the 2016 US election in Donald Trump’s favour, boosting his chance of winning, according to a declassified report released on Friday 6th of January.

The report did not state how exactly the campaign may have altered people’s decision when voting or in fact if it resulted in Trump being elected. What was included was that there were various hacks ongoing throughout the election. These included attacks into email accounts of political figures and officials of the Democratic Party. There was also evidence found that members of Russia’s government were paying “trolls” to spread fake news about Hilary Clinton just days before the election.

Trump had been quick to dismiss any findings obtained by the CIA on Russia’s interference and with his opinion on the attacks changing every other day, it is hard to understand what actually has been going on. Trump first believed the attacks were from Russia, but did not comment if they were imposed by Vladimir Putin. Days later, he took back his allegations commenting that anyone could have done it. Now he has stated that he does believe Russia was involved in the hacks but also other countries and people. Leaders of his own party have been expressing their concerns on the topic.

In a new twist, it was revealed that during the attacks, Russian operatives not only found damaging information on Hilary Clinton but claim that they have obtained compromising personal and financial information about Donald Trump. This information is said to be held to keep him inline with the Russian allegations and to show that even though they had information on both parties, only information on Hilary Clinton was released.

Obama has expressed his feelings to Putin about the situation and has stated that actions shall be taken. However, with just days before he steps down and Trump takes his place, there has been no sign of any action. Will it be all swept under the carpet when Trump takes charge?

During a party on New Year’s Eve, Trump was asked about the problem with cyber security at the moment and his response was “No computer is safe”. He preceded to say that we should do things the old fashioned way and send anything important via courier if we really wanted our information to be secure. In debates leading up to the US election, Trump has expressed his doubts in the current security issues, that we had to “do cyber better” and about  “closing that Internet up”. Even though Trump clearly does not know a lot about cyber security and sending us into the past of using couriers is in noway going to help the issue; he does make a good point, “no computer is safe!”

With such large-scale attacks causing global chaos and an average of 90 million attacks a year, more still needs to be done to help prevent cyber crime. With obvious threats to the election, the US stated they were prepared for a Russian cyber attack, but were they actually fully prepared?

If there was an approaching threat to your business, could you confidently say that you are prepared?
Intact Security can assist your business, we conduct Risk Assessments, Threat Analysis, Penetration Tests and have a plethora of useful tools to help fend off an attack. Click here to find out more.

Relax, your Security is Intact.

Author: Intact Security

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