Unfortunately, you may have seen an increase in the media over the last couple of years of cyber-attacks affecting global businesses, which is then filtered down to smaller organisations.
In July 2021 a ransomware cyber-attack hit a Florida based IT support company which then spread through to many smaller IT support firms that used its software. This in turn got passed down to thousands of end users via the very companies they thought were protecting them. A cyber-attack on one company hit thousands more.
10 years ago, companies might have gone back to manual systems whilst they sorted the problems. Hard copy lists of customers, files of invoices and posting cheques!! Technology now means that for most businesses, the inability to access their systems, or even to just connect to the internet, would shut the whole business down.
Before Covid-19 many businesses had everything in one place and secured, with spam filters and virus checkers seeing everything in and out of the business. Suddenly people working from multiple locations on different internet connections opened businesses up to much greater threat.
One client received a trail of sophisticated e-mails purporting to be from the company director, sent to the finance person with requests to make an immediate payment to secure some special supply deals, as ‘other routes were blocked due to Brexit changes’. The tone of the language was normal for that business, and there was even a comment “can you confirm the current balance so we don’t create any cash flow pressure”.
Payment made for c. £7k. and bank balance disclosed. Then another e-mail, similar request, different payee. c. £6k And another to a different payee c. £19k. The finance person left before a 4th request arrived and was then off for a day. On return they e-mailed to apologise for the delay and check if the last request still needed to be paid. At this point the proverbial hit the fan!
Pre-Covid, there would almost certainly have been a walk down the corridor and a face to face discussion about the issue. Remote working made that impossible. You may be thinking that you wouldn’t have fallen for this, but the e-mails were extremely plausible, and the bank checks (suggested Payee name matches bank record) confirmed the payments were to legitimate bank accounts (presumably redirected elsewhere very swiftly). Whilst a call could have been made to check, normal protocols had been lost in the new working from home environment.
The point is that attacks on your business are literally happening every day. Most are being stopped by good Spam filters and virus checkers, but some will get to the human (weaker) part of the defence system. Clicking on dodgy e-mail links, believing the clever Bank ‘fraud detection’ phone call, using your date of birth for the password, or using unsecured networks for mobile banking for example, all put important data at risk.
So here are a few questions you might want to consider…
- Do you have a disaster recovery plan? (Not on the computer!)
- Do you have a disaster recovery team? (Who will drive action, when an attack is successful?)
- Do you have a log of all your suppliers and contacts? (Are details accessible offline?)
Stage 1 of any disaster plan is knowing who to call, having passwords available, and knowing your account details and reference numbers etc. Without these many firms can’t even talk to you. If they are only on the IT system that has been attacked, then that may be a huge challenge.
When you take a look at all the interacting systems in most businesses, there may be upwards of 20 providers delivering some element of the IT infrastructure, from the incoming phone lines and internet connections, to e-mail, financial and critical business software.
Many businesses now use VoIP phones systems (via the internet) which can also be lost if the systems are attacked, so customers can’t even call you.
At Mark Holt & Co Group we understand the importance of these issues, and are of course hugely dependent on technology to operate. So we have the following as some of our defence and recovery systems…
- A backup phone line. Calls can be diverted to a mobile numbers for incoming call handling.
- A backup internet connection from a second supplier.
- A log of exactly who has what IT hardware and software, and where kit is.
- Specialist cyber insurance. This covers the expensive expertise needed for a major attack and the financial impact that could arise from even the shortest of interruptions.
- Paper copies of all critical contracts to access support quickly and easily.
A cyber-attack can happen to anyone no matter what size business you are or which industry you are in. Just recently in October this year, a cyber-attack hit the UK’s internet phone providers affecting their VoIP services which impacted thousands of businesses including the police and NHS.
The news regularly reports on Banks that have seen internet banking crash, sometimes for days. Even the likes of Facebook are not immune from technical challenges despite the amount they spend on security. The statistics on how many attacks happen each day (around 65,000 for UK SME’s) and the number that are successful (around 4,500) are terrifying. Perhaps more so is that 38% of businesses reported a loss of revenue following a data breach and around 60% of ‘small’ business (small not defined in the report) fail within 6 months of a breach.
The sad reality is that investing in cyber security is just a necessary cost of doing business these days. Some of this is on good systems to detect and defend the constant barrage of attacks that are coming every day, and some is the good practice of being prepare to react quickly and decisively when it happens.
So get a disaster recovery plan ready now.