Find out more. There is a growing threat from cyber criminals and nation state actors for businesses of all sizes. In the last 12 months in the UK, a third of charities, half of primary schools, half of businesses, almost three-quarters of secondary schools, and almost every single higher education institute has been subject to a cyber breach or cyber attack of some kind.
More than seven million online fraud and cybercrime offences took place against businesses in the same period. For example, the current regulations cover only operators and not supply chains; smaller and less well protected organisations are often a route for criminals to attack larger organisations. Latham cited the example of Synnovis, a pathology laboratory that suffered a data breach, which allowed the attackers to disrupt London hospitals.
Alongside that, the government has designated data centres as critical national infrastructure CNI. For example, the telecommunications and energy sectors. The government is also working on a code of practice for cyber governance, setting out critical governance areas that directors need to be able to protect within their organisations. Latham also highlighted the important role that ICAEW members can play in influencing the organisations they work with to ensure that they take cyber security seriously.
Businesses of all sizes are for the most part targeted for financial gain, Owen explained. For that reason, attackers are going to look for the easiest ways to get into systems, and often that involves people.
Training often revolves around the points of entry for a hack, but critically, the reconnaissance phase of the hack is often not discussed, which leaves vulnerabilities exposed. They do some online reconnaissance. They targeted the CIO, who had tried to limit his digital footprint.
