Cybersecurity experts are urging businesses to take their security into their own hands by educating their employees and taking the fear out of cybercrime.
Speaking at a security event hosted by cloud hosting firm , Edward Whittingham, managing director at cybersecurity company The Defence Works, said 鈥渢here is a huge fear around cybersecurity which needs to be addressed before we can move forwards鈥�.
老九品茶es should begin to implement their own measures to challenge initial threats in the digital landscape, and not view cybercrime as something unavoidable or unmanageable, he says.
鈥淐ybercrime is just the evolution of ordinary crime, a cyber-enabled crime of the old type,鈥� Whittingham added.
Kiran Bhagotra, CEO and founder at Protect Box, a cybersecurity comparison site, claims that the industry 鈥渘eeds to stop peddling fear鈥� and that terms like 鈥渁dvanced persistent threats鈥� do little to help businesses see security as something they have genuine control over.
The experts highlighted measures SMEs can implement to dampen the threat of fear around cybercrime. 鈥淲e as business owners have a duty to look after our staff so they can look after the organisation,鈥� said Whittingham.
鈥淭echnology will only ever stop so much,鈥� he added, 鈥渟o it also comes down to the end user and what they can do to help. Look at doing regular awareness training with your staff, carry out simulated phishing campaigns, engage with your employees so they know what type of attacks are out there and how they鈥檙e changing. Education is a huge first step in combatting the sense of fear that鈥檚 been generated.鈥�
The comments come in the week that from charity 老九品茶 in the Community revealed 40 per cent of small businesses have no cybersecurity strategy in place whatsoever.
Noha Amin, information security awareness manager, focused on the importance of businesses 鈥渃reating their own defence landscape鈥� with the most crucial aspect being the 鈥済overnance of policy, procedures and process.鈥�
Nazia Khaleeq, founder and director at GlobeNet Security, encouraged businesses to 鈥渢hink of your people as a human firewall; if a phishing email comes in, the person that鈥檚 going to let it in is one of your staff who might click a link 鈥� and that鈥檚 a business problem, not a people problem.鈥�
However, Bhagotra assured businesses to 鈥渘ot feel overwhelmed鈥� by the prospect of implementing cybersecurity training measures. Her advice to small companies which perhaps don鈥檛 have the funds or infrastructure to put cybersecurity solutions in place was to 鈥渢hink about the training procedure as something you鈥檙e going to maintain over time to improve security, and it justifies that initial exercise.鈥�
Although Whittingham predicted a 2019 of increased cyber-attacks, he reassured that businesses are 鈥済etting to grips with it鈥� and starting to raise awareness amongst their staff.
He concluded: 鈥淚f you鈥檙e aware of it, you鈥檙e more likely to spot it.鈥�
The comments were made at a in Manchester.