CYBERUK takes place in Glasgow this week. The UK government’s flagship cyber security event gathers cyber security experts from around the world and will give delegates the opportunity to interact and learn more about the latest solutions.
If you are not attending the event, learn more about the challenges faced by those working and living in the UK below.
What challenges are UK businesses facing?
Information from literature such as the Cyber Breaches Survey 2019 can give an indication of the challenges that businesses across Scotland and the UK are facing.
This report, which was released in April 2019, states that 32% of UK businesses have identified cyber security breaches or attacks in the last 12 months.
Among the 32% of businesses facing breaches or attacks, the most common types are:
- phishing attacks (identified by 80%)
- others impersonating an organisation in emails or online (identified by 28%)
- viruses, spyware or malware, including ransomware attacks (identified by 27%)
Phishing emails are by far the most common. A ‘phishing’ email is usually disguised to look like it is from a trusted party. In most cases it will ask the user to either reply with log-in details or visit a website that then asks them to log-in.
In reality a cyber criminal is sitting behind it all, hoovering up the credentials presented and using them to plan a more substantial attack on the corporate network.
How to tackle these attacks
UK businesses are implementing the key controls recommended by the government accredited Cyber Essentials scheme. Once these controls are in place, businesses are protected against around 80% of cyber attacks.
The government’s National Cyber Security Centre claims that:
“Cyber Essentials is a simple but effective Government-backed scheme that will help you to protect your organisation, whatever its size, against a whole range of the most common cyber attacks.”
£50 off Cyber Essentials
In celebration of CYBERUK and Cyber Week Scotland, our partner Cyber Essentials Online is running a £50 off discount code.
For a limited time only use code: cyberscot50
