Trust is placed in friends and family and earned by those we don’t know. Our communities depend on it and will not arise spontaneously without it. Trust is an integral part of our lives. Problematic is that in today's hectic business environment, we are often forced to interact at a moment's notice with people we just don’t know. We may be required to admit them access to critical infrastructure that underpins the very foundation of our business. Even when we know them, do we really know it's them we are interacting with the entire time?

‘00000000’ – Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile launch code Alarmingly at one time, the U.S. had no secret launch codes on its nuclear missiles at all. Then in 1962, the White House had them installed in an attempt to bring some sense of security. Despite the strong objections of the U.S. Strategic Air Command who bemoaned that the extra protection may affect deployability speeds, the codes became a reality. However, to effectively circumvent the White House directive, the “secret unlock codes” were set to eight zeros.

Ticketmaster have become one of the first companies to have a major data breach since the arrival of GDPR. Data including payment details, addresses, names and phone numbers of around 40,000 users have all been affected by the breach. Ticketmaster say the breach was first detected on the 23rd June and affected 5% of its customers.

2017 has been a big year concerning cyber security, positively and negatively. The rise of Ransomware into the mainstream news with global attacks on businesses and record numbers of data breaches such as Yahoo having one billion accounts accessed by hackers. IT security is one of the fastest moving industries, and it's vital that every business tries to keep up and stay protected.

1.4 Billion hacked and leaked passwords have been collated in a single file and are currently sitting on the dark web. Security firm 4iQ who discovered the files say that rather than this being a new breach it is a collection of several previous breaches. None of the passwords are encrypted and all the data has been put into a searchable, interactive database.

Businesses in the UK have cut the amount of cash they are prepared to spend on cyber security despite the rise in global attacks this year.

There’s a good reason why businesses rely on email providers such as MailChimp to send high volume broadcasts and this became obvious to one worker last month who inadvertently crashed the entire NHS mail system.

It’s that time of year when a deluge of new malware attacks try to lure you in with infected email attachments in messages which purport to be from legitimate companies – the types of companies you would expect to be emailing you at this time of year. Amazon appears to be the worst culprit right now – or rather emails containing intriguing subject lines such as ‘Your Amazon Order Details’. Of course, it’s not really Amazon sending these bogus messages. Instead they originate from cyber criminals hoping you will open the attached file and thereby unleash havoc on your own PC. What a lazy (but effective) way to propagate malicious code! Naturally, the malware you might inadvertently install by opening an infected file threatens to compromise the performance of your machine or, worse still, the security of your personal data. Besides fake order updates from Amazon, other variations are also doing the rounds – ‘important notifications’ from HMRC containing PDF attachments and, of course, the traditional bogus documentation from all the major banks: Barclays, RBS, HSBC and Lloyds to name but a few. What can you do to protect yourself? So if your inbox is full of messages that you were not expecting on subjects you do not recognise, what can you do to avoid falling foul of the hackers? Here is some simple advice that may prevent you compromising your security. Know your sender – our simple message to you is this – do not open email attachments from unknown senders. Beware malicious files – invoices and delivery notes from Amazon and other suppliers are designed to tempt you to click. However, most online retailers do not send file attachments with their order updates and Amazon for one have made a statement to this effect in the past month. Be careful what you download! There is no such thing as a free lunch and ‘freeware’ as well as P2P programs are amongst the biggest culprits. These software applications are frequently bundled with copious amounts of bundled spyware. Phishing and ID theft. Be especially wary of hyperlinks contained in messages that appear to originate from your bank, building society, telecoms provider, PayPal account etc. A useful tip is to hover your mouse over any such link to reveal whether the URL actually does originates from the website in question. Update your antivirus – your antivirus software should be set to update at regular intervals and manual checks are advisable too. If you have any questions regarding your own internet security software, please contact us to discuss this matter as a matter of urgency.

When it comes to cyber security, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond MP has recommended fighting fire with fire (or maybe firewalls with firewalls).

Widespread distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks were recently responsible for bringing down a large proportion of the internet, including Twitter, Spotify and the PlayStation network, but how was it carried out? Let’s take a look at what DDoS attacks are and the risk they pose.