Cybercrime, the big picture - In 2015 the Office of National Statistics released figures showing there had been over 7.6 million cases of cyber related crime. In addition, recent research, conducted by Lorega, shows that 75% 0f SME's have experienced a cyber attack in the last 12 months. But as a company Director, the even scarier statistic is that you're now more likely to become victim of cyber related crime than a physical assault - such as burglary or assault.

In June 2016, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) released a report which stated that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) were continually under attack from cybercriminals and that the collective cost of these breaches cost UK SMEs approximately £5.26 billion annually.  The report went on to say that 99% of the UK's 5.4m SMEs rated their reliance on the Internet as ‘highly important'.

But there's a problem.

Despite being fully aware of how important the Internet is to the continuance of their business, SMEs are simply not doing enough to protect themselves from an increasing number of cyber threats. Every business is at risk from cybercrime but SMEs are the ideal target for certain threats from cybercriminals, such as CEO e-mail fraud and hackers looking to steal customer data. One particular type of cybercrime in particular, which is affecting SMEs more regularly, is ransomware - where hackers demand payment in order to unlock files that they have encrypted.

A ransomware horror story. 

When the owner of a small design and marketing agency turned on his computer, he was met by a large red warning message on his screen. The message told him that all of his files had been encrypted and he wouldn't be able to access anything unless he paid £2,000 in Bitcoin; an untraceable virtual currency. Everything in his system was made inaccessible by the cybercriminals.  His client orders - locked. His invoicing - locked. His client database - locked. His clients marketing and art work - locked. His emails - locked.

Everything he needed to run his business was now being held to ransom by cybercriminals who had tricked their way into his system and were demanding money to release it back.  So he paid the cybercriminals but, instead of releasing his locked files, they simply demanded more money.

What can you do if this happens to you?

1)     Preparation is key. Don't wait for this to happen to you.  It's essential to train your staff not to click on untrusted links or open unexpected attachments.

2)     You'll also need to make sure you have a good technical back up strategy.  This particular design company is currently rebuilding their business from backup files and databases. It's not been easy, because they never checked which backups were being taken. So you need to ask your IT provider, team or person "how are my files being backed up?" and "are they separate from my ‘live' files?". Ransomware authors are not stupid - the software will actively seek out backup files and folders and also encrypt them!

3)     Don't pay the cybercriminals - by doing so, you are feeding the machine and cybercriminals will carry on with this kind of fraud.

4)     Make sure you inform the police if this happens to you. 

How Cyber Recovery can help

If you become a victim of cybercrime, resulting in a loss of personal or customer information, a ‘Cyber Recovery Insurance' policy will help you get your business back on its feet. Our cyber emergency response team will be on hand to deal with the crisis, including technical and forensic services to assist with regulatory investigations help you with the PR issues that arise and provide financial support for penalties or fines that may arise from the loss of personal data.

Visit lorega.com to find out how Lorega can help you to survive a loss of personal information, following a data breach or cyberattack.