The first Thursday in May is World Password Day, dedicated to highlighting the importance of having secure passwords and making cyber security a priority.
With so many of us now working remotely due to the coronavirus, cyber security needs to be front of mind for all business owners and employees, especially those using their own devices for work purposes.
Here’s all you need to know about World Password Day and how to create a secure password to stay safe online.
Have you been a victim of cyber crime? If not, the chances are you will know someone who has – one-in-six adults have fallen foul of online fraudsters, according to a study from Experian, the global information services company.
More of us are working from home than ever before – an estimated 8 million employees now enjoy flexible working, according to figures from This is Money and Lloyds Bank.
The frequency and severity of cyber attacks rose again in 2019 as hackers successfully attacked major cities, governments, businesses, hospitals, and schools across the globe – in October alone 421,103,896, data records were confirmed to have been breached, with 111 incidents in which sensitive and financial information was compromised.
It’s been a few years since the Wannacry cyber hack hit thousands of organisations worldwide, including the NHS, and brought the reliance on the internet and technology into sharp focus. While the events were more about hackers holding large organisations to ransom, many individuals could be concerned about whether their personal data might be at risk as a result of the hack. And the hackers are showing no signs of slowing down.
But how well do you know the web?
As a business owner, you’ll be keen to attract and retain the best talent, and offering employees the chance to work from home is a good way to go about it – not only will your people appreciate the flexibility, it could actually increase productivity.
But before you offer staff the chance to work remotely, you need to make sure it’s right for your business and ease your way into it – here’s how…
If you want to successfully work from home, you need to make sure you have the all the same equipment, apps, and logins you have in the office – there are few things more frustrating than spending half the day trying get things up and running, and constantly phoning IT to make sure you have the right logins.
So once you’ve got the work laptop sorted and the VPN, here are some essential work from home apps to make your work from home life even easier…
Repetitive strain injuries (RSI) are among the most common workplace injuries – the TUC (Trade Union Congress) has stated half-a-million UK workers have reported symptoms that add up to a collective loss of 5.4 million working days each year.
Added to that, six workers will leave their job every day due to chronic RSI.
It’s estimated this costs UK industry anywhere between £5 billion and £10 billion every year.
2018 was a big year for cyber attacks, with nearly half of businesses (43%) and a fifth of charities (19%) in the UK experiencing a cyber breach. As if those figures weren’t concerning enough, fewer than a third of businesses (27%) and less than a quarter of charities (21%) have formal cyber security policies in place, according to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2018 from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Here’s how to make sure your company’s cyber security procedures are all up to scratch…
How much do you trust your smartphone? It might sound like a daft question, but just take a minute or two to think about the sheer volume of sensitive information your phone holds – from banking app logins to business messages and emails – and think how much damage could be done if this information fell into the wrong hands.
So, to help make sure your data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, here’s how to keep your smartphone secure.
Social media has been around for the best part of 40 years – Usenet appeared in 1979 and is the first recorded network that enabled users to post news to newsgroups.
Although these Usenets and similar bulletin boards heralded the launch of the first, albeit very rudimentary, social networks, social media never really took off until almost 30 years later, following the roll out of Facebook in 2006.
So, what exactly is the state of social media in 2018?