FOCUS FEATURE
POST-COVID CYBER TRENDS
Keeping cyber security simple
Life in the fast lane of the digital age means we’re also in the midst of spiralling cyber crime, constantly looking in the wing mirror at the latest online threats. One of the main speakers at the Chamber’s Cyber Week event, Air IT chief technology officer Lee Johnson, gives a high-level overview of the trends in this space and explains to Dan Robinson how businesses can protect themselves on a budget
F
rom VPNs and DDoS, to cryptojacking and trojan horses, the world of cyber security is fraught with its own terminology that could be enough to put off the average business owner from wanting to explore any further.
The types of cyber-attacks are far, wide and growing in
number every day – as are the defences and, inevitably, the cyber dictionary. For Lee Johnson, though, it doesn’t have to be as
complex as it sounds. “Some of the simplest security implementations can often provide some of the most effective methods of protection, such as multi-factor authentication,” says Air IT’s CTO and head of its specialist cyber security division Air Sec. “Implementing user awareness training programmes,
with videos showing employees what to look out for and how to spot a phishing email, handling credit card data and spotting CEO fraud attacks are good examples.
REGARDLESS OF THE route businesses take or the methods used, the need for online protection is clear. Cyber crime is on the rise. The UK Government reported
46% of businesses were breached or attacked in 2019/2020, with the proportion of those experiencing issues at least once a week increasing from 22% in 2017 to 32% in 2020. The largest loss from a single cyber-attack in 2020,
according to Hiscox, was $15.8m but, while SMEs may be tempted to view it as a problem for the big firms that can afford such payouts, they shouldn’t be fooled. Breaking down its findings into different business sizes,
Hiscox’s Cyber Readiness Report 2020 found the median average cost of cyber incidents over a 12-month period were $4,359 for companies with one to nine employees, $9,225 for those with 10 to 49 staff and $58,750 for firms with a headcount between 50 and 249 people. Its cyber risk score puts the smallest of those cohorts at
the top by some distance. “SMEs are often the primary target for quite a few
reasons,” says Lee. “Many don’t have a specific cyber security budget to protect their organisation, which puts them especially at risk when their entire workforce is operating remotely.” Just like the most effective defences are the simplest, so
are the attacks – despite an ever-growing glossary that includes terms like formjacking, cryptojacking, drive-by downloads, RATs (remote-access trojans) Phishing attacks, in which emails are designed to trick
receivers into divulging sensitive personal data such as passwords or bank account details, remain the most common, with Microsoft reporting they accounted for more than a billion of 13 billion malicious or suspicious emails blocked in 2019. Hackers often mimic messages from real websites such as Amazon or PayPal, but the pandemic has enabled more opportunities for improving sophistication.
64 business network February 2021 Lee explains: “We are commonly seeing attacks that are
using the pandemic to their advantage by sending carefully-crafted phishing emails with a Covid theme. “For example, towards the end of last year a lot of
organisations were beginning to plan a phased return to the office before the second wave, so the cyber criminals used this to their advantage and sent emails featuring ‘return to work information’ or ‘essential Covid-19 policy updates’, with links that actually redirect users to a malicious website. These types of ideas increase the likelihood of their attacks being successful and have been profound during the pandemic.”
THE UNPLANNED SHIFT to homeworking has amplified the risks that had already existed. Whereas employees in many professional organisations would previously have been within four walls and on a single server, each individual now has their own internet network – opening more doors to hackers. “In some organisations, IT infrastructures are now being
used in ways they weren’t originally architected for, with corporate data being accessed from personal devices that may have not have had the correct safeguards in place,” says Lee. “This creates problems for businesses. It’s safe to say the
trend line on cyber-attacks is only going one way – and that’s up.”
Lee Johnson
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