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TECHNOLOGY has brought many benefits to both our personal and our professional lives.
It has revolutionised the capabilities of businesses, business owners and employees, and things are generally quicker, easier and more efficient.
But that, of course, doesn’t come without its dangers, and businesses must consider whether they are adequately protected from threats.
Meg Winton spoke to David Salisbury, enterprise product manager at Sure Business, who shared his insights into cyber security for businesses.
Can you tell me more about your role and responsibilities at Sure Business?
I help design and build out a range of services for businesses in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. We build things suitable for the size of the company’s location in the island, and all those services have cyber security woven into them.
At every stage, we think about cyber security both within those products and as an overlay.
How would you define cyber security?
Every aspect of a business has an element of cyber security from networking and storage to laptops, for example. It’s critical to look after data.
How long can you do your job without a computer? We can’t work without them, so they need to be secure because there are industrial ransomware gangs that want to take data away from you and charge you to give it back again.
What do companies need to do to protect themselves from those threats?
It’s an arms race between the hackers and yourselves as a company. You need to make sure your security tools are giving you the right level of protection but not stopping you from doing business.
Cyber security is not something that comes in a packet on a shelf. What Sure Business does is understand what you’re trying to do as a customer and advise on how IT services can make that work better for you.
How much should a company spend on cyber security? How much of an investment should it be for them?
As a cyber information security professional, we look at cyber attacks on a risk basis. How likely is it that an attack will happen? How much loss would that cause the business? How much can the business spend to mitigate that?
If you have not got protection, you will become a weakness in the food chain.
What would you say to small businesses that may feel they’re not at risk because of their size?
I’ve heard that many times, with people saying “they’re not interested in little old me” or “they’re attacking banks or the big boys”.
Hackers are now attacking the small and medium-sized companies because they know they can’t afford that level of security and might not be as well prepared.
These people are very clever and hacking is a good living for them.
How is Sure Business helping?
We’re based in the islands and we have a vested interest in all the companies in the islands because we are part of this island community. Sure Business wants to make sure we all keep moving forwards and maintain the positive reputation of the islands.
Watch and learn
To hear more from David about the ever-evolving world of cyber security, and how you can protect your business, listen to the full Bailiwick Podcasts episode through your preferred pod provider or scan the QR code below to watch the video interview in full.
