October is Cyber Security Awareness Month – 20th Anniversary

Where to start with regards to Cyber Security is a good question.

Cyber Threats and Attacks in the modern day come through numerous methods, from Brute Force attacks, Phishing Emails, Ransomware, DDOS (Distributed-Denial-of-Service) Attacks etc..

As technology advances, our reliance on devices and internet-based services increases, but at the same time technology advancements in area’s such as AI is increasing the threat landscape.

Being vigilant and taking a zero-trust approach is best.  Even if it’s your Boss emailing to say he’s in a meeting and needs you to do him a favour, as per the common scam tactic seen on emails where the sender is actually not your Boss, but a bad person trying to scam you into buying Amazon or iTunes vouchers for example.

If something doesn’t seem right, then it probably isn’t.  Ask yourself the questions, would my Boss ask for a favour, would he write in that style, I can see them in their office and they don’t look like they are in a meeting needing a favour.. take a second and think before actioning anything or clicking on any links.

Social Profiling is huge now and using tools such as LinkedIn, it is easy for a bad person to see that Joe Bloggs is the Owner/CEO of the company and recently a new Financial Controller started with the business.  The Financial Controller is an easy target, maybe doesn’t know the Owner/CEO that well yet, doesn’t recognise his/her writing style, maybe doesn’t know the protocol’s of actioning such a request.  They maybe eager to please the Owner/CEO in their new role so action things without thinking about whether the email received is legitimate.

October being Cyber Security Awareness month is aimed at increasing the education of common Cyber Threats, tactics used by the bad people and also advise on security best practices and solutions in order to protect you, your business, your staff, your family from being caught out by a Cyber Threat and also provide advice and suggestions on how to protect your systems and devices.

One such piece of advice relates to the recent End of Support for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 which you can read more about here

During October we are planning on posting articles on different areas of Cyber Security, so please keep an eye out on our social media channels and our blogs page here: https://sbsit.co.uk/ramblings-of-a-geek/

Get in touch for any Cyber Security advice or help with securing your environment following Server 2012 and 2012 R2 going End of Support.