IT Support for Business

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.

Why are you not Cyber Essentials certified yet?

According to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2019, the average cost of all breaches identified in the last 12 months for small businesses was £1,210 while for medium businesses, it was £3,770. Also, around 32% of businesses reported having cyber security breaches in the last 12 months.To meet these cyber security challenges, the UK government has implemented a range of schemes and initiatives. Of all the initiatives, Cyber Essentials (CE) is possibly the most useful for SMEs.

“Only 30% of the enterprises mentioned implementing changes to cyber security because of GDPR.” – Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2019

According to a report by NIG, almost 80% of data breaches can be prevented by implementing Cyber Essentials. This initiative brings many benefits to businesses looking to get certified; here are the five most important benefits:

What is your IT support provider costing you?

“Around half of all enterprises (49%) in the UK have outsourced some part of technology to an IT support provider. Also, outsourcing is more common among small and medium businesses than others” – Cyber Security Breach Survey 2019

Almost half of SMEs struggle to find IT staff with the necessary level of skills and experience. This is just one of many reasons why many SMEs look to outsource their IT operations. Outsourcing IT can either be merely offloading support and maintenance, or outsourcing an entire IT department. More often than not, small companies find it difficult to justify the cost of more than one full-time IT support person. Whereas, working with an IT provider can mean having access to a full team of experienced consultants.

However, not all IT support providers offer the same quality of support and services. Outsourcing should not be viewed as a simple cost-saving exercise. An unsuccessful IT support provider can cost more than you can imagine. The cost can be in terms of money, operational downtime, company reputation, losing your competitive edge and loss in staff time. So, it boils down to one question: what does your IT support provider cost you?

5 Must-Have Agenda Items your IT Strategy Should Address

Having a robust IT strategy is critical to the success of any business, whether they realise it or not. No longer is IT just an enabler for businesses to run software, answer emails or take phone calls. IT has transformative effects on their ability to grow effectively and efficiently. However, for this to ring true, IT must be aligned with the business; and this comes from a carefully thought out strategy. Yet many businesses are moving forward with a poorly designed IT strategy or with no strategy at all.

The IT strategy serves as a road map that will help businesses understand how to leverage existing and emerging technologies to support business objectives. Below are five must-have agenda items your IT Strategy should address:

Why You Should Plan to Fail… by Building an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

Irrespective of industry, IT system failures can have a devastating effect on small and mid-sized businesses. IT disruption for even a few hours can bring business operations to a standstill resulting in significant financial loses. Crises’ such as server or internet failure, cyber-attack, fire, flood or even a natural disaster could takeout your IT infrastructure and cripple your business. SMEs, therefore, must have a recovery plan in case of such a catastrophe. Not having a plan to fail can put your enterprise at risk of financial loss, brand damage and most importantly risk of losing customers.

How to protect your company’s sensitive information from being traded on the dark web

Did you know that your employee identity or customer details can be illegally sold for as little as £7 to £10?

Businesses may or may not have heard the phrase “dark web”, and even if they have, it may be difficult to understand what it is and what it can mean to their business. In today’s digital world, online interactions have increased tenfold with digital payment systems, online databases with sensitive information, personal identities and digital corporate information. It has led to an explosion of digital crime with hackers stealing sensitive data and selling them on the dark web.

6 Factors You Should Consider when Choosing a New IT Provider

Managed IT support and service providers are an excellent choice for your business if you are looking to improve their business efficiency. A good IT provider not only offer affordable IT services but also provide business owners with peace of mind knowing that their IT is in capable hands.

However, not all IT service providers are competent enough to offer your enterprise with industry best practice services. Below are 6 factors to consider when selecting your preferred IT service provider. Continue reading

Advantages of Outsourcing your Cyber Security Services

“Almost half of businesses in the UK including SMEs (43%) suffered a cyber-attack in the last twelve months.” – Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

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