Interruptions to your company’s day-to-day operations can be a worry for all businesses. These interruptions can come in all shapes and sizes, such as new laws and regulations, interruptions to your supply chains, adverse weather, and even acts of terrorism and national disasters. Now more than ever, companies need to be versatile and able to adapt to threats. While this all sounds worrying, correct knowledge and planning can prepare you for the rainy days and help your business keep moving.
So what is a top threat to business continuity? Cyber attacks and data breaches are a huge threat to business continuity, sometimes resulting in loss of money, resources, time, data, and even your company’s reputation. Around 34% of UK businesses in 2022 were victims of cyber-crime, making it one of the biggest threats to your business continuity.
Read on to learn more about business continuity, cyber attacks, cyber resilience, and what steps you should be taking to protect yourself and your company.
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What are the Top Threats to Business Continuity?
While there are many things that could bring your business to a halt, understanding the top threats can enable you to improve your resilience and maintain business continuity throughout. Here we’ve listed the top three threats to business continuity and how they could affect your business:
Cyber Attack
Cyber attacks are a huge source of concern for businesses, with phishing attacks, ransomware, and direct attacks (physically gaining access) all on the rise. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problem due to more people working from home and conducting their business online. Cyber attacks can be particularly worrisome, as they not only cause loss of money, resources, and access to devices and data, but they can also harm a firm’s reputation. Do you think your cyber security needs improvement? See our cyber security solutions page to find out how we can help you protect your business.
Data Breach
A data breach is a security incident that has affected the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of personal data. Some examples of this include loss of storage and computer devices, mobile phones, and network breaches.
These breaches can negatively impact a business’ reputation through loss of trust. Customers don’t see your company in the same light after a breach, and 81% of consumers stop engaging with a brand once it happens. Nearly 60% of companies affected by a data breach are likely to go out of business due to reputational damage. On top of this, data breaches also cost money and resources to correct and prevent access to key data and devices that your business needs to run effectively.
The ICO also has the power to issue fines to your business for not protecting personal data. This can get worse if you fail to comply with investigations, which could result in a fine of up to £17.5 million or 4% of your total worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.
Fire and Flood
Whether it’s through loss of physical data or losing access to property and equipment, fires and floods can have a huge impact on your business continuity. While having fire control measures in place can help, creating a remote backup of your data ensures that should the unthinkable happen, you’re able to keep your employees working remotely.
How Can My Business Build Its Cyber Resilience?
There are three key aspects of cyber resilience that every business should be actively monitoring and updating their processes for:
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- Anticipate
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- Manage
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- Adapt
Anticipate
Anticipating threats can be difficult, especially now that there are so many avenues for attacks to happen, with employees working from home and an ever-increasing online world. Improving your security measures makes it more difficult for anyone to gain access to your systems and data. This can include easy steps such as using strong passwords, two-factor authentication, and updating software. Unfortunately, not everything is that simple, and attacks can also come through poorly maintained or designed systems, insecure Wi-Fi networks or access controls, and more.
Did you know that the North East Business Resilience Centre can perform a Business Vulnerability Assessment so you can know how protected your systems are from attack? Click here to find out more.
Manage
Managing attacks as they happen requires coordination and collaboration throughout the organisation, ensuring you act quickly and efficiently to neutralise the threat. Having a detailed cyber security plan is essential for this, allowing the entire response team to complete their roles without hesitation. This cyber security plan should include what steps to take in all types of attack, since the source and outcome of the breach can vary.
To assist with your cyber security plan, businesses and organisations can get access to the Police CyberAlarm – which is a free tool funded by the Home Office and delivered by police forces in the region. The CyberAlarm works alongside an organisation’s current security, and detects attacks as they happen, alerts the business and CyberAlarm team, and uses the data gathered to create reports that help you further protect your business.
Another way to alert yourself of potential cyber attacks is the NCSC Early Warning system. Early Warning is a free service, designed to inform your organisation of potential cyber attacks on your network, as soon as they happen.
Reporting to the police and complying with law enforcement is a key aspect in managing attacks. If you’re suffering a live Cyber attack (in progress), call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040. Or if you’re reporting a cyber-attack that has already finished taking place, you can also report via Action Fraud’s online reporting tool.
For more information on helplines and what to do in the event of a cyber attack, visit our Emergency Help Page.
Adapt
Companies with strong cyber resilience don’t end the process with managing the attack, the next step is to look back and review how well prepared you were. This way you can improve your systems, defences, and cyber security plan before the next potential attack happens.
At NEBRC, we can also deliver the LEGO exercise developed by NCSC, which helps management teams decide in which order and what to do to protect and recover from attacks. Contact Us now to take part.
What Types of Cyber Attacks Are Possible?
Cyber attacks come in many forms, such as phishing, brute-force, malware, and many more. They can generally be broken down into two categories:
Un-Targeted Cyber Attacks
Un-targeted attacks are the most common form of malicious cyber attack. The attackers target as many devices, services, or users as possible without caring about who the victim is. This is done through mass techniques such as sending emails or setting up fake websites. These forms of attack can have a low success rate, but due to the volume of people that they’re able to cover without requiring extra setup and work, they’re still able to find a large amount of weaknesses and vulnerabilities to exploit.
Examples of un-targeted cyber attacks:
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- Phishing: Fishing for sensitive information through fake emails pretending to be from legitimate sources.
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- Water holing: Setting up a fake website to take advantage of users.
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- Ransomware: Where the victim’s system is held hostage until they agree to pay a ransom to regain control.
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- Scanning: Randomly attacking wide sections of the internet at random.
Targeted Cyber Attacks
Attackers will single out a particular victim because they have specific interests in them or their business. This can be done by sending targeted emails to specific individuals or through a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. The build up to a targeted attack can take months while the attacker tries to find the most effective way to approach your systems. These are the generally the most damaging types of attacks because they’ve been specifically aimed at the weakest part of your system or personnel.
Targeted cyber attacks are often performed by organised crime to target important parts of the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). While it’s important to be aware that targeted attacks exist, unless your company is part of the CNI then it’s unlikely that you will be a victim of a targeted attack as an SME. However, if you have weaknesses in your systems and processes that a botnet sees as an easy target – you could be seen as vulnerable and targeted as a result.
Examples of targeted attacks:
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- Spear-phishing: The same technique as phishing, however the attacker takes time to research their targets and write messages that are personally relevant.
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- Deploying a botnet: A network of private computers infected with software that can control them as a group without the owner’s knowledge.
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- Subverting the supply chain: Attacking equipment or software that’s being delivered to an organisation.
Strengthen your Cyber Resilience With the North East Business Resilience Centre
At NEBRC, we’re a police-led, not-for-profit organisation that’s dedicated to your cyber safety. We work closely with you to keep your data safe around the clock and reduce your risk of cyber attack.
To find out more about our services and what we can do for you, visit our website. Or for a more tailored solution, get in touch.
FAQS
What Is a Cyber Attack?
A cyber-attack is an attempt to damage, disrupt, or gain unauthorised access to computer systems, networks, or devices. They can be performed by an individual or group, and can use many tactics and techniques to find a vulnerability and exploit it. Cyber attacks can have many motives, such as personal or financial gain, political causes, or even terrorist activities.
What Are the Different Types of Cyber Attacks?
While there are dozens of attacks that could be used against you, this list covers the 10 most common examples.
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- DoS and DDoS Attacks
A denial-of-service attack overwhelms a system’s resources with illegitimate requests until it is unable to reply to legitimate service requests. While other types of attacks seek to gain access to the systems, with DoS and DDoS attacks the objective is only to interrupt the target’s service.
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- Man-In-The-Middle Attacks
This refers to a breach in a system’s security that allows for an attacker to eavesdrop on the data being transferred. The attacker positions themselves in the middle of two parties trying to communicate and is able to spy on their interactions.
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- Phishing
This happens when an attacker sends emails that pretend to be from legitimate sources, in an attempt to receive sensitive information from the target. The emails can contain links or requests for information.
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- Whale-Phishing Attacks
Whale-phishing is essentially the same technique as phishing, however the attacker targets the “big fish” of the company and goes after the leaders. This is done as they are more likely to pay ransoms to protect their reputation.
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- Spear-Phishing Attacks
Again, spear-phishing uses the same phishing techniques, however the attacker takes time to research their targets and write messages that are personally relevant.
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- Ransomware
With Ransomware, the victim’s system is held hostage until they agree to pay a ransom to regain control.
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- Password Attack
Here, an attacker tries to gain access to a user’s password through a variety of means. These can include physical notes lying around, intercepting network transmissions, or convincing the user to provide the password through social engineering.
This can also include “brute-forcing” methods, where the attacker tries to guess the password using the user’s basic information or common words and phrases.
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- SQL Injection Attack
Structured Query Language injection takes advantage of websites that depend on databases to serve users. The attack inserts a command line into one of the data points – such as a password or username, and the server that holds the database then runs the command.
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- URL Interpretation
Attackers try to guess URLs that they can use to gain administrative access or access to the site’s backend. Once they have access, they are able to manipulate the site or gain access to sensitive information about the people who use it.
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- DNS Spoofing
Here, a hacker can alter DNS records to make them send the site’s traffic to a fake website. This can result in the victim entering sensitive information because they believe the site to be legitimate