We are very proud to have recently been accredited by the Good Business Charter.

What is the Good Business Charter?

The GBC is a not-for-profit organisation that encourages businesses of all sizes to behave in a responsible way to their customers, suppliers, and other organisations. You can find out more about their 10 point charter and information about how your business can join in and become accredited on their website. Even if a business doesn’t want to become accredited there are only good reasons to follow their 10 point charter and improve your business practises, show you care, be ethical, and improve their public image!

Put more in, get more out, and become an Ethical Capitalist.

With the increasing volume of data, devices, programs, and users in the modern enterprise, implementing effective cybersecurity measures can be challenging.
Attackers will keep finding new and creative ways to break even the most sophisticated of barriers. Understanding cybersecurity to help identify the best practices to prevent unauthorised access to networks and data has never been more crucial.

Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is known as electronic information security or information technology security. It is a body of practices, processes, and technologies designed to defend electronic systems, mobile devices, data, servers, and networks from malicious attacks or unauthorised access.
Cyberattacks are usually orchestrated to access, change, or destroy confidential or sensitive information and in some cases to interrupt regular business processes for reasons or sabotage or extortion.

Types Of Cybersecurity
The term cybersecurity can be used in different contexts from mobile computing to business, and can be divided into several different focuses.
Network Security: This is when a computer network is secured from opportunistic malware or targeted attackers.
Application Security: For software to be kept safe and free of threats, its security has to be designed concisely to prevent its data from being compromised.
Information Security: The privacy of data in transit and storage are protected with information security.
Operational security: This deals with user permission and access including the decisions and processes involved when handling data assets.
Disaster Recovery And Business Continuity: An organisation’s response to cyber-security incidents or any other event that causes the loss of data falls under this umbrella. In the absence of certain resources, fall-back options need to be put in place for operations to continue.
End-user Education: Humans are liable to make mistakes and in business a small mistake can lead to the introduction of a virus, so good security practices and policies must be followed to ensure a secure system.

Why Cybersecurity is even more important with the evolution of new technologies

IoT And 5G
Our society is become more dependent on technology and this trend increases on a daily basis. The introduction of new technologies such as IoT and 5G networks creates more room for vulnerability due to the expanded and faster nature of their networks.
An increase in the number of connected devices can bring about numerous multidimensional cyberattacks. Therefore, a well-defined and regularly updated cyber strategy is vital.

Greater Use Of Cloud Computing
A market study by Canalys in 2019 revealed how cybersecurity deployment had a 46 percent year-on-year increase. This shows that organisations and businesses believe in cybersecurity solutions for public cloud as a service.
Cloud computing services are increasingly being deployed, but hackers are also increasing their knowledge with the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to carry out their cyberattacks. This reinforces the need for cybersecurity to prevent and avoid automated cyberattacks.

Threats to Cybersecurity
Nowadays, there is a concern for the need to shield information from malicious parties even at the highest levels of business. The sophistication of cyber attackers and their growing volume pose a serious danger.
Organisations that have a sole dependency on customer’s data can have their databases breached. In 2017, credit reporting company Equifax had its database compromised and 147.9 million people’s personal information stolen (more than twice the population of the UK).

Types Of Cybersecurity Threat
Here are types of threats that are not only present today but will continue in the future.
Malware
Malware is one of the most popular cyber threats. It is a type of malicious software used by cybercriminals to damage or harm a user’s computer. They are often spread through legitimate-looking downloads and unsolicited email attachment. Types of malware include:
Trojans are disguised as legitimate software on user’s computers and are used to collect data.
Spyware programs are used to secretly record what a user does. They could be used to capture credit card or cloud login details for example.
Ransomware works just like blackmail. A user’s files or data are encrypted, and will only be decrypted when a ransom is paid.

Phishing
Phishing is a generic email or messaging attack that is performed on a large scale, where the same message is sent to many unconnected mailboxes and the distribution is large. Commonly a phishing attach will try to take the user to a fake site where the user may be tricked in to entering sensitive data like credit card numbers or supply real login details for a service.
Spear Phishing attacks are more targeted and can come across as legitimate email or text messages from a colleague or business partner. Cybercriminals target victims in a refined form of social engineering by supply some real and familiar details, causing the user to lower their guard and think they are communicating with someone they know.

Insider Threats
Insider threats can be negligent or malicious. Caused mostly by humans, they involve losses or security breaches by customers, contractors, or employees.

Social Engineering
This usually involves breaking security procedures by relying on human interaction in a bid to gain sensitive information. Cybercriminals employ different tricks to carry out this type of attack.

Distributed Denial-of-service (DDoS)
Attacks are directed at a website, server, or other network resources with a flood of connection requests, messages, or packets. The attackers make use of multiple systems to disrupt the traffic of the targeted system thereby overloading or slowing down the system.

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)
This is where the infiltration method is used to manipulate a server in a prolonged targeted attack with the aim of stealing data and staying undetected.

Man-in-the-middle (MitM)
Messages between two parties are intercepted by an attacker and the information stolen without the two parties’ knowledge.

Other
There are other popular attacks such as vishing, credential stuffing attacks, drive-by-download attacks, botnets, malvertising, exploit kits, zero-day exploits, SQL injection attacks, and business email compromise (BEC).

Cybersecurity Tips

• Keep systems updated with the latest security patches
• Employ the services of reliable and trusted antivirus software and security solutions for a better level of protection
• Ensure your passwords are strong and difficult to guess
• Beware of opening unknown email attachments or links that could be infected with malware
• Avoid unsecured networks, like public WiFi, as these can be used to execute man-in-the-middle attacks.

Conclusion
Cybersecurity is the hope for the future of technology. Not only are the number of attacks growing, but they are also becoming harder to prevent.
Cyber vigilance is an important attribute in the cybersecurity setting. Educating your organisation about popular attacks such as typosquatting, phishing emails, and other social engineering scams is also very important.
To thwart any serious cyberattack, a multi-layered cybersecurity approach involving a standard combination of software and firewalls is recommended.

What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is an immutable, shared ledger that facilitates the tracking and the record keeping on a business network. Any asset can be tracked within the Blockchain network; whether the asset is tangible like land, house and cars. The network can also keep track of intangible assets like patents, branding, intellectual properties, copyrights, etc. Virtually anything of value can be tracked using this technology. This makes the underlying assets secure and reduces the overall administrative costs. Blockchain is a transformative technology that has a lot of potential and will end up influencing almost every area of our life; whether it’s finance, logistics or healthcare, this technology can be applied. One of the most profound applications of Blockchain is with cryptocurrencies; basically Blockchain is the ecosystem that supports cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. This shows how powerful Blockchain can be.

Why is Blockchain important?
Every business highly depends on information; actually businesses are run on information. The faster and more accurate the information can be received, the easier it becomes to do business and make relevant decisions. Blockchain is an ideal technology for this because it provides immediate access to information. The information is shared in a transparent manner and the ledgers can be accessed by any authorised member within the network. The Blockchain network can be used to track payment, orders, accounts, production, distribution and other business operations. Within the network all the members see the same information in a single view, so all the details of the transaction can be seen end-to-end and this brings about greater confidence making operations more efficient.

Key Features of Blockchain
Blockchain is made up of a distributed ledger technology. The ledger is immutable and all the members within a particular network have access of all the information. Since the ledger is shared, information is recorded only once and this eliminates any duplication efforts that can take place on other more traditional business networks. Since it is immutable, no single individual is able to change or tamper with a transaction once it has been recorded into the shared ledger. If a transaction that was added to the network had an error, then a new transaction will have to be added to the network to reverse the error and both transactions will be visible. Smart contracts is another key aspect of the Blockchain technology. Smart contacts are protocols within the network that are intended to automatically execute various actions based on the terms of the contract. Smart contracts have defined conditions and can use to execute a wide range of operations like corporate bond transfers.

Benefits of Blockchain Technology
Traditional record keeping and information management systems have very many drawbacks like wastage of time duplicating records and a constant need for verifications from third parties. These record keeping systems are very vulnerable to cyber-attacks and fraud. Limited transparency often slows down the process of data verification. With the usage of IoT, transaction volumes have drastically increased and this has increased the difficulty of using traditional systems. The extra processing results in slowness and drag, reducing the overall output of a business. Contrary to this Blockchain has set itself apart as the most reliable and secure system when it comes to information management. It is extremely secure and accurate as any new data added into the system will have to be verified by all the members. Verified transactions are also immutable because they are usually recorded permanently and no one within the system can delete the record, not even the administrators. Since the networks can only be accessed by members, you can always rest assured that you are receiving timely and accurate data. In conclusion, Blockchain is a very efficient, secure and reliable technology that can be applied in many areas.