North East Times Magazine speaks to Communicate’s Cyber division director David Johnson. David heads up our 24/7/365 UK-based Security Operations Centre (SOC). Here, he shares his expertise on cyber security.

Why is cyber security important?

Cyber security is a complex beast; however, most breaches Communicate deal with, as part of our incident response, have commonalities. Over 95 per cent of the suspected breaches could be avoided if companies covered two basic but essential tasks regularly, more on that later.

Non-ethical hackers take advantage of weak systems to build credibility among peers or to steal information of value. A breach or attack can disrupt your business operations, causing issues with cash flow and the costs associated with eradication of the attack. Then there is the potential of huge fines and reputational damage.

How can I keep up with emerging/common threats?

Being part of local cyber security groups, such as Dynamo North East and CSIPC, is a great way to learn about what others are doing and to share information to understand the latest threats. Having a dedicated internal team looking after cyber security is essential. Common reasons businesses get hacked is cyber security not being managed by a specialist.

Click to read the full article on North East Times’ website.