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10 Years of Success: a sit down with m3

From redundant to robust, we are thrilled that we will be celebrating our 10^th birthday this Sunday, 18^th of August 2019! It has been 10 years of hard work, and although there have been a few bumps on the road, we believe it has made us stronger than ever.

In 2009, m3 Networks started out as three colleagues made redundant due to a business closure. Mark Lamb, Mary Brodie, and Mark Riddell decided to set out on their own journey. m3 was formed the day after leaving their previous employer; they believed they could build something great, and here we are!

After 10 years in business, 5 office moves, hundreds of clients later, and now a team of 11, our founders sat down and discussed what 10 years of success means to them.

Why SMEs Fear and Ignore Cyber Attacks

Yes, we all fear cyber-attacks, but the reality of the threat doesn’t come into the picture until your network is down and so is your business! According to research by Close Brothers Business Barometer, businesses in the UK are more worried about cyber-attacks now than they were a year ago. Cybercrimes are becoming more devastating for SMEs than natural disasters.

Proud team! – Ruth and Jay’s 1000th reviews

At m3, we do not just routinely handle any IT issues our clients have; their feedback and reviews mean a lot to us. For this reason, we implemented SmileBack. SmileBack is a tool which allows our customers to leave a review for every interaction they have with our help desk, good or bad. Our dedicated help desk technicians work hard to keep up our good reviews; and it shows. Our current percentage of positive scores on SmileBack is over 99%, with us having raked in thousands of reviews. Ruth Lamont and Jay Mace, two of our many amazing technicians have both managed to reach their 1000th reviews! This is certainly no easy task – read on to find out how they feel about this achievement.

I know what you did this summer

Now that we are at the peak of summer, every other person is going on holiday. It’s easy to let your guard down on holiday – whether its getting chatty with the person sat next to you on the plane, or befriending the other families at the pool. This however, should definitely not be the case when it comes to your cyber security. Whether you are travelling for business, or for leisure, read on to get the best of our travel cyber security tips.

Recap: Cyber Security Breakfast

Following the success of our previous Cyber Security Breakfast in Dundee, on the 17th of July we had another Cyber Security Breakfast in Perth. The event was in partnership with the Royal Bank of Scotland, and we had the pleasure of hosting a range of attendees, both current clients and non clients. Some of who were already on the cyber security path, and some who were completely new to the idea.

10 IT Terms That Every CEO Should Know

If you are a CEO and sometimes think your IT team speaks a different language, then you are not alone. Many CEOs find it challenging to understand IT terminologies. This blog identifies ten of the most important IT terms which are necessary for CEOs to be aware of. Knowing standard IT terms will give you credibility, broaden your knowledge, and allow you to ask the right questions to help your business stay competitive.

Cyber Essentials from a clients perspective

Recently, we had the pleasure of meeting and getting feedback from Louise Rogers from Human Resources Intelligence. Louise spoke to us about her experience with m3 and how we assisted her business achieve Cyber Essentials Plus certification.

Cyber Essentials is a UK Government scheme to enable business obtain a minimum level of cyber security. In Scotland, up to £1,000 funding is available to help business achieve Cyber Essentials.

You can find out more about Cyber Essentials and how to apply for funding here.

Also, find out more about Louise and her company here.

Cyber Security Breakfast

If you have been following our social media (@m3networks), you will have recently seen our posts about an upcoming event – our Cyber Security Breakfast. This isn’t the first cyber security breakfast; in fact, our past cyber breakfast in Dundee went so well, we just had to bring it to Perth!

This event will be in partnership with the Royal Bank of Scotland, who are kindly providing tea/coffee and breakfast rolls for attendees. We will be delving into presentations about fraud, the current threats posed to SMEs, and the steps businesses, like yours, should be taking to meet the UK governments minimal cyber security requirements.

How likely are your staff to fall for a phishing email?

Phishing is one of the most dangerous, yet successful forms of cyber threats to SMEs. Hackers pretend to be trustworthy entities such as clients, colleagues, IT departments or suppliers, and trick you into disclosing sensitive information. According to a survey by Sophos, 41% of businesses reported phishing attacks daily, and over 77% experienced attacks at least once per month.

Why SMEs should outsource their Cyber Security

Cyber attacks are a recurring threat, with almost a third of businesses in the UK reporting cyber security breaches in the past year. As of previous years, this is much higher, particularly among mid-sized enterprises (60%). In a rapidly changing technology landscape, outsourcing cyber security services can help your business remain agile, protect sensitive data, control costs and monitor threats continuously.

Here are the top five benefits of how outsourcing your cyber security services to professionals can minimise your businesses exposure to cyber attacks.

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