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Showing items tagged with "cyber crime" - 23 found.

Top five tips to improve email cyber security over Christmas

Here are our top five tips to help you relax and reduce the risk of  cyber crime happening to either you or your business for example, identity theft, denial of service, loss of sensitive data and home burglary etc. The key is to disconnect but if you find that hard then be discrete about what you say and post.

1. Go ‘cold turkey’ over the holiday, at least on Christmas and Boxing Day.
2. Set a safe and simple Out of Office.
3. Avoid posting on social media sites about presents and where you will be, especially if you are going away.
4. Watch out for unusual emails which will probably be phishing emails taking you to bogus websites that may capture your personal details.
5. Never email under the influence of drink – when your judgement and vision could be impaired.

For some more suggestions on how reduce email overload overload and to take time our from the digital world and especially from email click here to see my latest blog on Huffington.co.uk.  The article also contains ways to re-balance your work-life balance and reduce stress.

If all else fails you might want to check your level of email addiction click here to start.  At Mesmo Consultancy have helped may business people reduce their level of email addiction and improve their work-life balance.  Call us for an informal discussion about how we can help you.

Tags: cyber crime, email addiction, email overload, Huffington.co.uk, Mesmo Consultancy

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Email security top tips to protect yourself from cyber crime

How good is your email security? Cyber crime is now a tier one priority for government and business.  Sloppy use of email is one of the most common ways to leak important information and open the door for the cyber criminal.

Improving your email security is one of the first steps to managing the risk of a cyber attack.

Here is a summary of the top tips Dr Monica Seeley (Mesmo Consultancy) discussed on the Geoff Carter Show on HotRadio 102.8FM on Wednesday 04 April

1. Create strong passwords for access to your email account – ideally eight or more characters which include, numbers, alphabetic letters, special symbols (such as ? and £) and capitals.  The easiest way to create a password which is memorable to you is from a sentence.  For example: In 2012 my favourite city is Paris.  This would become I2012MfcIP.  Check the strength of your password using the Microsoft Security site.
2. Set a safe Out of Office message.
3. Avoid putting confidential information in emails – they are as transparent as a postcard.
4. Don’t open unusual emails.
5. Keep your virus software up-to-date.
6. When emailing files, clean them up and send them in  PDF format.
7. Password protect them if they contain highly confidential information.
8. Check you are sending the email to the right John Smith.
9. Benchmark your Acceptable Computer Usage Policy and check that you and everyone in the company adheres to it.  If in doubt about how robust your policy is, ask us at Mesmo Consultancy to do a free review.
10. Minimise the amount of personal information you put on social networking sites and especially names of friends, pets and close family (as these often form the basis of security questions).

For more email security tips like these subscribe to Mesmo Consultancy’s monthly ‘E-briefing.’ For your free review of your company’s Computer Acceptable Usage policy please contact us by phone on 01202 43 43 40 or email.

Tags: cyber crime, email security, password protection

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Email and the law – careless emails are expensive

Careless emails can be very expensive.  Last week I ran a workshop on ‘Managing the risk of cyber crime’.  Cyber crime in all its different guises now costs business more than physical crime according to a recent Cabinet Office report  (you and I stealing pens and paper from the staionary cupboard).  In financial terms, cyber crime costs businesses about £17bn per year.  Recovering from a breach of security costs most business between £20,000 and £500,00 according to PcW. 

The inclusion of e-evidence can add upto an extra £500,000.  Yet as the KPMG e-disclosure report identfied, few High Court Judges really know how to handle e-evidence. Indeed witness the super injunction fracas.

Sony admitted it will loose revenue and clients as a result of the hacker attack on its Playstation network.
All this prompted me to re-visit how easy it is to leak confidential information through email.

You can have the very best technology to scan outgoing emails for content, block the use of unkown USB sticks etc.  However, at then end of the day the majority of cyber crime is committed by human error.  The most common leaks occur through the following human actions.

• Sending an email to the wrong recipient
• Content which breaches the law
• Attachments with meta data
• Attachments which are not secure
• Out of Office Message
• Emails sent to home address
• Jokes

How often have you either been trained in email best practice and the law or trained those who work for your business?  Probably, if you are like most organisations, rarely and often only after an incident.

There are two simple steps any business can take to manage the risk of a cyber crime attack through email.  First, have an up-to-date Acceptable Usage Policy which has been read and accepted by all employees.  Second, provide adequate user training.

During the week I will post some simple ways for everyone to help manage the risk of breaching  security and compliance.  A subsequent blog will also look at the common laws which govern email.

Tags: cyber crime, email best practice, email security

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