Our Duty of Care…
We want to take this opportunity to cut through all the current noise re cyber security (M&S, Co-Op etc) and offer you some very practical advice.
Ransomware.
The UK Government reports that in 2024 20% (283,000) of all UK businesses were the victim of at least one cyber crime. Of these, some 72,000 UK businesses were then victims of cyber facilitated fraud. Many of these UK businesses (19,000) were victims of Ransomware. In a Ransomware attack Hackers will steal data and threaten to publicly release it – or encrypt data and prevent you from getting access to it – unless the victim pays a ransom.
Ransomware attacks were up over 100% last year. (Source: Office for National Statistics - Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024)
Identity.
Hackers used to focus their efforts on looking for vulnerabilities in your traditional IT network – operating systems that had not been patched, ports that had been left open. In 2024 this “initial access technique” was the source of just 14% of successful cyber attacks.
Looking for vulnerabilities is pretty labour intensive, so more recently Hackers developed phishing as a means by which they could attack much larger volumes of businesses more easily. Phishing sees Hackers use things like email attachments to insert malware that creates a vulnerability on your network. In 2024 this initial access technique accounted for 15% of successful cyber attacks.
Hackers have now changed the game again. Rather than just focus on gaining access to the traditional network – the old perimeter that you will have spent time and money trying to defend – Hackers are now seeking to exploit changes in where employees work and where business applications and data are hosted. During and after Covid we’ve seen a very significant increase in Identity related attacks where Hackers steal and then use real users' identities to gain what might appear to be legitimate access to your systems. In 2024, this initial access technique was the source of 38% of successful cyber attacks.
Identity related cyber attacks are going to become even more common:
- AI will increase a hackers ability to look at large volumes of data and distill likely username/password combinations.
- AI and IOT create many more machine identities which hackers are also seeking to target.
- Some countries overlook or actively support hackers operating within their borders. Geo politics are less stable than they were.
Our Advice to You
To respond to the heightened threat, we would encourage you to:
- Understand the importance of identity management.
- Think about your own potential cyber vulnerabilities.
- Turn on Multi-Factor Authentication across your devices, this should be a company-wide policy to help protect your identity.
- Define and manage user permissions rigorously. Limit access by role, device, geography and working hours. Insist on complex pass phrases standards and revoke user access as soon as people leave the business.
TSG is here to help.
Cyber Care is the suite of services we provide to help keep our customers safe.
Monitor: We monitor your IT estate and will alert you to security threats and issues that you need to act on. Our OneView Portal helps you prioritise effectively.
Respond: We respond to those threats and issues on your behalf. We will do our best to help recover your systems and ensure you have minimal disruptions.
Manage: We help customers adopt best practice in terms of identity management and then administer those policies and Microsoft Entra on your behalf. We will run your joiner, mover, and leaver processes.
In developing Cyber Care, we onboarded a number of beta customers. During the beta program one of these customers suffered a significant cyber attack. We blocked the attack and helped the customer recover. They said, "Without your service, I wouldn’t know what to do" CFO (Engineering Firm).
We have a duty of care to you as a valued client when you need thoroughly practical advice and support – please give us a call.
