A powerful and historic cyber assault on a small country in Northern Europe set a new precedence for vulnerability in national digital operations.
Since then, many more similar attacks have been made on other countries, highlighting the growing problem.
In an era revealing more and more cyber attacks from countries boosting their cyber-warfare capabilities, stronger accommodations must be made, and at every level.
Nobody is 100% safe. Notably, it seems, a country like the UK that is highly dependent on online technology for the day-to-day running of its businesses, government, and suppliers.
This article provides an overview of why the UK is an easy target for hackers and cybercrime…
- Cyber-warfare and its impact on UK business
- Protecting UK businesses
- Finding the right security consultancy in London
- So, what should we do?
- Protect yourself from cybercrime
- What needs to be done to prevent international cybercrime in the future?
- Growing cyber-attacks are evident all over the world
- Cyber security in the UK
Cyber-warfare and its impact on UK business
It was way back in 2007 when a powerful international cyber-attack struck Estonia.
The historical event that became known as Web War 1 heralded a new era in digital reactions to international relations. As a small country, you wouldn’t have thought Estonia would be of too much interest to a significant territory as Russia, but you’d be wrong.
It all boils down to who’s in charge.
It turns out that the more advances Estonia made towards the Western World and away from Russia, the less happy about it Vladimir Putin became.
The devastating cyber attack launched on Estonia was traced back to Russia and was assumed to be a state-sponsored affair. Its impact was catastrophic. It paralysed the banks, cash machines ground to a halt, the government IT systems were shut down, and the websites run by the Estonian media became frozen for weeks.
The Estonian defence minister of the time revealed that the attacks were all aimed at their commercial banks, telephone companies, media outlets and their name servers. In fact, the real target was the essential electronic infrastructures of the country.
Protecting UK businesses
To avoid any such hit of epic proportions happening to our national wellbeing, it’s a must that proper steps are taken to protect our online lives at every level.
No single business should sit back and think that cybercrime doesn’t apply to them. Ok, if your SME or small business gets hacked, the country might not grind to a halt, but your services, operations and profits certainly could.
The bigger picture news is a fair warning of the kind of messes an inadequately protected business can be left vulnerable to.
Finding the right cyber security consultancy in London
The nation’s capital has been under regular threats of terrorism for quite some time. And now, as cyber-warfare grows, our digital domain begs for enhanced protection from the same.
As no international law currently exists to prosecute against the use of cyber-weapons, we’re still very much in an ‘every man for himself’ situation.
So, what should we do?
The first step is to make sure protection is applied from the ground up.
So much in our current life happens online. The government, the major utility suppliers and the provision of financial institutions are all more than aware of the cyber-threats they’re under.
The protection of their data and systems is a high priority. Customer confidence is one thing, but having your business floored by an attack from another country—well, that’s unforgivable.
With much of the country’s business operating in and around the capital, it could be conceived that an attack on London would be as damaging an opportunity as anywhere in the country, or indeed, the world. With that, total cyber security in London is a must and is an undertaking to be managed by the experts of this field.
Protect yourself from cybercrime
There is an abundance of IT security companies in London to choose from. Here at totality, we pinpoint bespoke needs and provide the managed IT security London firms need to feel safe and secure.
For example,
- Network security
- Central security management
- Microsoft 365 solutions
- Data backup
- Anti-virus and anti-malware
- Security operations centre
- Mimecast solutions
- Google Workspace solutions
- Printing security
- Hard disk encryption
We work hard to provide the best in business data protection and compliance in all of our professional security solutions.
What needs to be done to prevent international cybercrime in the future?
International law needs to develop and grow with the changing times. The use and governance of these cyber-weapons need policing in the same way that prevention of any other type of war is.
Innovation in technology happens at a break-neck pace. Providing legislation to deliver adequate protection will always struggle to keep up. It’s dangerous territory, and the world needs binding global treaties to prevent this new genre or war from becoming out of control.
Growing cyber-attacks are evident all over the world
Regular incidents of international hacking are emerging from every corner.
Russia has been blamed for several further attacks—one of the most significant events was on the Ukraine power system in 2015. And you’d have had to be asleep to miss the allegations made against them about their involvement in the US elections in 2016.
Sony was hacked in 2014, this time suspected by North Korea, in retaliation to the release of a film documenting the communist state.
In Dallas, hackers infiltrated the city’s defence system to set off tornado warning sirens in the middle of the night.
And a New York hospital was brought to its knees after its management refused to pay a $30k ransom demand.
A survey announced that 44% of local US governments suffered daily or hourly attacks.
New York established a cyber command centre to develop tools to help residents protect themselves and their businesses. Perhaps London should follow their example and do the same?
Cyber security in the UK
As one of the world’s prominent voices, it would be exciting to see the UK become part of the community that develops the required new ethical means of protection.
The work that goes into protecting our country’s economy and infrastructure needs to remain on point.
However, in the Global Cyber-Security Index, the UK lags behind many, ranked only 14th in the world. When you consider that we rank behind countries such as Oman and Malaysia, that’s a genuine marker of how much harder we need to work.
Leading the field are the US and Singapore, setting a strong example for others to follow. That said, it still beckons the question of how Russia managed the hack the US elections in 2016 if we’re to believe that it was them.