Representation of a computer network. Barbican, London. Image by Tim Sandle
According to the 2024 UK Government Cybersecurity Breaches Survey, 50 percent of businesses experienced a cyberattack or security breach in the past year. Last year, 32 percent of UK businesses reported experiencing a cyberattack at least once a week, with cyberattacks projected to increase by 15 percent globally.
In light of recent cyber threats, the ecommerce hosting provider Hypernode has explained to about the significance of cyber hygiene for businesses and share essential practices to ensure online safety.
What is cyber hygiene?
Cyber hygiene can be explained as a set of practices to maintain system health and security in relation to a business’s online activities. Like physical hygiene, maintaining cyber hygiene entails a set of regular preventative measures.
Cyber hygiene is a necessity in today’s digital landscape, where cyber threats represent significant dangers. Organisations can seek to reduce vulnerabilities, prevent common cyber threats, raise security awareness, mitigate the impact of assaults, and increase their overall cybersecurity defences by following cyber hygiene practices.
How can this defenition be translated into practical solutions?
Five key practices
- Antivirus and antimalware software – Installing antivirus and antimalware is an obvious place to start for protecting against cyber threats. These tools help detect malicious programs that can compromise data. Viruses and malware are constantly evolving, so it is crucial to also keep this protective software up to date.
- Be cautious of phishing – Phishing is a common cyberattack in which criminals use deceptive emails, messages, or websites to trick individuals into providing sensitive information. It is by far the most common type of cybercrime, with 90 percent of businesses that have experienced at least one type of cybercrime falling victim to phishing. Awareness and caution around possible phishing scams is crucial within all businesses.
- Back up and encrypt data – Backing up important data and storing it securely will be helpful in the event of a data loss or ransomware attack. Particularly sensitive data, meanwhile, ought to be encrypted to ensure it can only be accessed by authorised parties.
- Secure WiFi, strong passwords, and MFA – While seemingly obvious, these three simple steps, which are often neglected, are absolutely key to good cyber hygiene. Unsecured WiFi networks are vulnerable to attack from cybercriminals who may intercept data or gain access to internal systems. Similarly, weak passwords are susceptible to being hacked. Strong, unique passwords that are different for each online account should be used. MFA (Multifactor authentication) adds a layer of security to data and internal systems, keeping out anyone who should not be able to access them.
- Educating all employees – Perhaps the most important point is that a business’s security is only as strong as its weakest link, and a cyberattack can target any employee. Providing cybersecurity training to all employees is crucial to ensuring the security of a business as a whole.
Milan Bosman, Commercial Director of Hypernode, adds further context in relation to the above advice: “Warnings from experts, who have predicted the rise in cybercrime in the UK, have certainly been proven valid. Globally, cybercrime is expected to surge 15 percent throughout 2024, and 2023 government statistics already state that 32 percent of UK businesses experienced cyberattacks at least once a week. With this, the importance of maintaining cyber hygiene continues to grow.”
Bosman adds: “It’s a good time for businesses whose regulations are not up to date to review them and to ensure all staff are adequately educated around threats to avoid breaches in security.”
