Member Article

Businesses warned to protect data from cyber threat

Companies in the North West are being urged to take steps to protect themselves from dangerous malware which could have a devastating impact on businesses.

Thousands of people in the UK are at risk from the malware called Gameover Zeus, which attacks computers in a bid to harvest money directly from bank accounts and or by locking users out of files and demanding a ransom, according to the National Crime Agency,

The malware typically infects a computer via attachments or links in emails and has already struck in the North West – causing a small business owner from Birkenhead to lose £100,000 “in three minutes” after one his employees unwittingly opened an email infected with the Zeus virus.

Jonathan Kemp, who runs varnish producer AEV Ltd, said his company’s accounts manager opened an email claiming to be from HMRC on the same day cooperation tax was due before entering in confidential banking information.

The FBI has taken control of the network in order to protect individuals and businesses and given them time to update their operating systems and scan for viruses. However, this shield will only last for two weeks.

Peter Birkett from IT services company adept4, which specialises in data protection, said companies could protect themselves by updating their operating systems to the latest version and installing anti-virus software but needed to act swiftly.

He said: “This is a significant and indiscriminate threat to businesses and it’s vital that companies take appropriate steps and act now to protect the integrity of their systems. There are a number of measures which businesses can take to protect their software, these include the standard anti-virus, anti-malware and encryption services which make it harder for security breaches to take place.

“With a threat of this nature, it’s definitely worth looking at specific areas where your software might be at risk. One of the easiest ways for hackers to get into systems is by hacking through company’s email systems.

“Every company has an email system and this is one of the areas where they are really at risk – often without even realising it. Protecting your email system is vital and there is a range of products and services which can do this for you.

“We identified email as a common area of weakness for business. This was one of the reasons why we joined forces with other data security specialists to create our Secure Email Service.

“The service, which is available on the Government’s GCloud framework, acts as an impenetrable network, which enables secure communication between businesses and approved customers and clients.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .