Cyber Security: 5 Essential Tips for Your Business 

Organisations across the UK continue to battle against cyber security threats, with half of businesses and close to a third of charities reporting that they have experienced a type of cyber security attack or breach in the last 12 months. 

This is according to GOV.UK’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024, with the research study also leading to the estimate that the single most disruptive breach from the period analysed cost each business an average of around £1,205. This cost rises to approximately £10,830 when only medium and large businesses were considered. 

These statistics highlight just how important the topic of cyber security for business needs to be for employers. Which is why Pulsant has put together these five essential tips to form a more secure barrier against breaches and attacks: 

1. Ensure cyber security protection is always up to date

Up-to-date malware protection is used by 83 per cent of businesses involved in the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024. Could your firm count yourselves in this statistic? 

It’s important that any digital devices used in your company have the latest software updates installed. This is because these updates usually include patches that fix bugs and vulnerabilities – issues which are at risk of being exploited by hackers to access a user’s system and data. 

With the newest security features installed onto a business’s desktop PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone, you’ll instantly make it more difficult for cyber criminals to successfully compromise a device. 

Another word of advice here is to enable automatic updates. This option can often be set in the software’s settings or preferences menu and will mean the latest version can be downloaded and installed onto a device as soon as it’s made available from the developer. 

2. Carry out cyber security risk assessments

Back to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024, it was revealed that just 31 per cent of businesses and 26 per cent of charities carried out cyber security risk assessments in the past year. 

You really shouldn’t be ignoring doing this work though, as they provide businesses with the following benefits: 

• Greater visibility into all of your business’s IT assets and applications 

• Weaknesses with devices, applications and user identities will be identified 

• Specific vulnerabilities which could be exploited by a hacker will be spotted 

• Compliance with relevant data requirements will be achieved, thus reducing a business’s regulatory risk 
  

If you’re looking to introduce a cyber security risk assessment across your company for the first time, we recommend you check out this handy 11-step guide put together by the National Cyber Security Centre. 

3. Bring security monitoring tools into your business

There were only 33 per cent of businesses involved in the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024 which deployed security monitoring tools in the last year. 

You really will be making a wise investment if you bring these types of tools into your firm. Just take our Cloud Protect system, which is designed with advanced capabilities that’ll put your company on a proactive security and compliance footing.  

Once set up, Cloud Protect will provide your business with: 

• Security issues being identified, analysed, triaged, escalated and responded to around the clock through 24/7 threat monitoring procedures 

• The ability to comply with a huge number of regulatory mandates, as the system fulfils the requirements of every major IT security certification 

• Access to Cloud Connect; a feature that detects an attack and then alerts an analyst to respond accordingly. Engineers will then be remediating the risk at the same time, with this unified coverage available at any time of the day 

4. Get insured against cyber security risks

Another statistic from the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024 is that 43 per cent of businesses and 34 per cent of charities were reported as being insured against cyber security threats. 

Sometimes despite our very best efforts, we can be subjected to a cyber security attack. Therefore, it’s vital to be protected whenever a hacker compromises your business’s data and systems. 

While cyber security insurance will differ from one provider to the next, policies usually cover these aspects: 

• Pre-incident support (such as help with managing cyber security risks) 

• Post-incident support (such as cyber security specialists assessing systems to identify the origins of a breach and then advising on preventative measures to reduce the chance of a repeat attack in the future) 

• Damage to digital assets 

• Business interruption 

• Security and privacy breach costs 

• Liability costs 

• Cyber extortion
  
  

5. Never stop looking for cyber security awareness training & guidance

A worrying aspect of the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024 is that there’s been a drop in the number of businesses looking for external information and guidance about cyber security. 49 per cent of businesses sought out this knowledge in 2023, but this has dropped to 41 per cent in the past year. 

The term ‘knowledge is power’ is very adequate here. Advising employees about everything from the sharing of data and website verification matters, through to adjusting privacy settings and how to spot malicious online activity can help both them and the entire business from suffering a cyber security breach. 

As well as this article helping to expand how much you know about cyber security, we also have a dedicated cyber security section of our blog for you to peruse so you can build up a strong barrier at your business against cyber criminals.