The 2024 UK Government Cybersecurity Breaches Survey revealed that 50% of businesses had suffered a cyber-attack or security breach in the previous 12 months. This cybersecurity awareness month, cyber protection experts from e-commerce hosting provider Hypernode have highlighted the importance of cyber hygiene for UK businesses and revealed their key practices for staying safe online as a business.
What is cyber hygiene?
Cyber hygiene can be explained as a set of practices to maintain system health and security in relation to a business’s online activities. Like physical hygiene, maintaining cyber hygiene entails a set of regular preventative measures.
Key practices
- Antivirus and antimalware software – Installing antivirus and antimalware is an obvious place to start for protecting against cyber threats. These tools help detect malicious programs that can compromise data. Viruses and malware are constantly evolving, so it is crucial to also keep this protective software up to date.
- Be cautious of phishing – Phishing is a common cyber-attack in which criminals use deceptive emails, messages, or websites to trick individuals into providing sensitive information. It is by far the most common type of cybercrime, with 90% of businesses that have experienced at least one type of cybercrime falling victim to phishing. Awareness and caution around possible phishing scams is crucial within all businesses.
- Back up and encrypt data – Backing up important data and storing it securely will be helpful in the event of a data loss or ransomware attack. Particularly sensitive data, meanwhile, ought to be encrypted to ensure it can only be accessed by authorised parties.
- Secure Wi-Fi, strong passwords, and MFA – While seemingly obvious, these three simple steps, which are often neglected, are absolutely key to good cyber hygiene. Unsecured Wi-Fi networks are vulnerable to attack from cybercriminals who may intercept data or gain access to internal systems. Similarly, weak passwords are susceptible to being hacked. Strong, unique passwords that are different for each online account should be used. MFA (Multi-factor authentication) adds a layer of security to data and internal systems, keeping out anyone who should not be able to access them.
- Educating all employees – Perhaps the most important point is that a business’s security is only as strong as its weakest link, and a cyber-attack can target any employee. Providing cybersecurity training to all employees is crucial to ensuring the security of a business as a whole.
Milan Bosman, Commercial Director of Hypernode, spoke regarding the tips: “Warnings from experts, who have predicted the rise in cybercrime in the UK, have certainly been proven valid. Globally, cybercrime is expected to surge 15% throughout 2024, and 2023 government statistics already state that 32% of UK businesses experienced cyber-attacks at least once a week. With this, the importance of maintaining cyber hygiene continues to grow.
“With October being cybersecurity awareness month, it’s certainly a good time for businesses whose regulations are not up to date to review them and to ensure all staff are adequately educated around threats to avoid breaches in security.”
