The Easyjet breach, which resulted from a “highly sophisticated” attack, will have sent shockwaves around many companies – with 9 million customers impacted and over 2000 credit card details accessed. The latest breach continues to highlight that all organisations, regardless of sector or size can be the victim of a successful cyber attack.
As little is known about the cause of the breach it is too early to analyse how it could have been prevented, but it is certainly a good time to focus on your company cyber hygiene including the need to maintain a robust approach to vulnerability management, gain assurance over your critical systems and have the ability to detect and respond to a breach in a timely manner.
On the back of the Easyjet breach individuals need to stay alert to phishing emails that relate to the Easyjet breach – this is such a classic way for criminals to exploit confused and frightened customers. These emails may come in via company emails so do alert your employees to this and now is a good time to remind them of how to detect a phishing email – if in doubt don’t open of course! Irene Coyle, OSP Cyber Academy Director of training, has suggested that “it is essential to have strong means of positive communication, and encourage the ‘no blame’ culture, whilst emphasise the security message surrounding Phishing and social engineering following on from EasyJet breach”
Could this breach be in any way a result of home and remote working? Are your employees working with a safety/security first frame of mind while surrounded by their kids and pets….it is too early to know the cause of this breach but we do know that we are now all working in a time of increased risk due to the sudden and in many cases unplanned move to remote working. Please do re-check your new tools, solutions and processes and ensure you have not introduced any vulnerabilities or gaps to your security parameter.
David Stubley, 7Elements CEO has recently commented “it is paramount that organisations take the time to ensure that they continue to maintain good cyber security hygiene while managing the wider risks associated to both employees and the wider business by COVID-19.” For further advice from 7Elements read here. Both 7Elements and Quorum Cyber have seen an increase of attack across their customer base with Quorum Cyber dealing with approximately a 300% increase from last quarter.
Scotland’s thriving cyber cluster is helping Scotland and Scottish companies to stay safe and we have a number of innovative products being developed to do just that. You can find out more about them through our cyber directory or by looking at the ScotlandIS Cyber pages.
If you need to speak to someone in relation to you cyber security ScotlandIS are happy to put you in touch with some of our ScotlandIS cyber security members. We also have our next cyber awareness webinar on the 3rd June – to register please click here