Cyber Security and the risks to your business

Clicked on a bad link? Does the sender look familiar but been directed to a dodgy website? Both standard examples of phishing attacks, luring you in by getting you to open a seemingly legitimate email or URL and leaving your company’s entire network exposed to hackers. 

What are the biggest security risks to businesses?

Unfortunately, criminals have got smarter and it’s getting harder for employees and businesses to recognise a serious threat to digital security. Phishing attacks disguised as scam emails or phone calls are designed to personally target victims, often pretending to be from an organisation who has suffered a breach themselves.

These attacks are never isolated incidents, criminals send them out in their millions and regrettably, some are successful. Phishing attacks are accountable for 90% of all security breaches for businesses. The risk is higher in organisations who have not trained their staff in best practice, making your own employees a potential threat to your business.

Any attack on security poses a threat to your business’ network security and data, but phishing attacks are the most difficult to fight because they use social engineering to target your own employees. This means that your systems can be as secure as Fort Knox, but if your employees haven’t been trained and tested appropriately, they’re your biggest risk.

What kind of threat do these risks pose?

A phishing threat is most likely to take place following a data breach, but they also cause data breaches. The type of scam messages will usually ask for some level of personal details on a subtle manner or will install malware on devices once a URL is clicked. For such meaningless action the consequences are huge.

A phishing attack compromises your business’ IT security. The destructive impact includes reputational damage, losing customers, share price falling, fines and potentially leaked information and intellectual property theft, not to mention the general disruption felt by everyone across the business.

What can be done to mitigate these attacks?

Thankfully, there’s a wealth of strategies available to reduce your business’ exposure and vulnerability to cyber-attacks, lowering the risk instantly:

• End point management: ensures all devices are visible, controlled, consistent and secure.
• Patch management: ensures all known weaknesses are protected and vulnerabilities reduced.
• Cyber security risk assessments: carried out regularly and in addition to the previous two strategies which can be automated, you could mitigate the risk of not detecting a security breach before it’s too late.

Whilst looking at services for technological management and protection is a priority, you should also be considering training for your employees. These can take form as phishing simulation and training campaigns, targeting employees and revealing your level of risk. The benefits are not only heightened sensitivity to IT security risks, but they also help to create a culture where employees feel comfortable in reporting potential risks.

Outsourcing these functions to a services provider like Retail Assist means you can focus on what you do best whilst we deploy our specialist expertise. This extra support benefits your internal IT teams and protects their workloads, whilst creating a supportive environment that encourages employees to learn and increase their awareness of potential cyber security risks.

Why choose Retail Assist?

Our IT security model provides a combination of human and sophisticated search intelligence that enables us to prevent cyber security threats. We do this by identifying, analysing and proactively monitoring your organisation’s compromised or stolen data. We provide end-point management and IT security risk assessments to prevent attacks across all your systems and devices from any potential threat.

Our cyber security services team will introduce annual IT security training with all the engaging content and quizzes provided as well as regular phishing simulation and training campaigns. This will keep your data systems safe from any potential insider threats.

Don’t leave it until it’s too late! Contact us today to schedule your IT security risk assessment and find out how our cyber security services can help.