Cyber Security

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Arguably the most important  aspect of any twenty first century business is keeping our data safe. There is no point in creating a business with thousands, millions or even billions of pounds worth of revenue if the information is kept in an insecure environment where it is easily stolen.

Our grandparents ran their businesses with details kept in handwritten ledgers, probably kept in the company safe alongside any cash and cheques. Our parents started using stand alone computers which were more vulnerable to breakdowns and break ins than any form of remote theft.

However, nowadays computers are far more sophisticated and can be networked together with our data stored either on site or in some nebulous place we have never heard of, anywhere around the world. Through the Internet cyber criminals potentially have access to most computers in the world.

Consequently, it is up to us to ensure that our data is kept as secure as possible. Cyber criminals are extremely devious and clever and find many ways of accessing our precious data; they may then send out viruses, dubious emails or even encrypt our data in such a way that we cannot access it. This is usually followed by a demand for ransom money in order to free the encryption.

Most computer users, whether home or businesses, will have anti-virus protection. This is fine if the computer is stand alone and does not hold valuable data. It is not enough as a business grows. We need to protect our finances, our staff our customers, our suppliers, our property and our integrity.

If we are running a computer network with several or even hundreds of users we need to have a firewall protecting our data. We also need to ensure that we have a safe off-site backup (as well as on-site) of all our data.

At Arkel we keep our systems secure using all these methods. In addition we work with all our customers offering these services. We work with them to ensure that these and many other security methods such as multi factor authentication and security hardware keys are in place.

Arkel Computer Services has a fully qualified Ethical Hacker in its team. If you think you might be under attack, we can quickly look at what’s happening on your systems and tell you whether it’s a genuine incident or a false alarm. We review key logs, alerts and recent changes, then talk you through what we’re seeing. 

Where there is an attack, we help you lock down affected accounts or devices, work out how the attacker got in, and fix the weaknesses they have tried to exploit. We can also carry out one off or regular security “health checks” and penetration tests, so many problems are found and resolved before they turn into incidents.