Hacking

Gone are the days when the term phishing was associated with a leisurely Sunday afternoon activity and trees were the only victims of hacking.

The Mail on Sunday has reported a cyber-attack on exclusive jewellery firm Graff. Cyber criminals are alleged to have leaked up to 69,000 confidential documents, including private details of David Beckham, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey and Sir Philip Green.

Do you know your GIFs from your Gigabytes? To you, does RAM still bring up connotations of a sheep rather than computer memory? If you’re not up to date with technological lingo, you’re not alone.

Despite routers becoming increasingly easy to use and configure, most people don’t amend the settings of their router having set their Wi-Fi name and password. Yet without updating your router and security settings, you could be leaving your router open to cybercriminals and malware.

Funds transfer fraud – whereby fraudsters dupe innocent businesses and individuals into transferring what they believe are legitimate payments to fraudulent bank accounts – is becoming an increasingly common problem for most modern organisations.

Over the past few years many high-profile businesses have fallen prey to cyber-attacks and data breaches, but it’s not just global companies that are at risk; according to Government figures, 74% of small businesses in the UK experienced some kind of cyber incident last year.*

Cyber-attacks are a widescale problem, affecting both businesses and individuals across the globe. They can have a hugely detrimental impact on both the reputation and running of your business with data breaches potentially resulting in legal battles and negative press.

Many people allow their children to access their personal computers, tablets or mobile phones at home. Even if the kids use their own personal devices, these are linked to the family network and can easily be connected to each other.

Malware has the potential to harm your computer in a number of ways, whether it be your PC, Mac, smartphone or tablet. A botnet is formed when the security of multiple computers is breached with the same strain of malware, forming a network of machines that the criminal can now remotely manage.

As a business owner, managing chaos could be one of your daily duties. For every business which relies on a website or app, though, this enters a new realm amidst the realisation that your website or app is down.