Cyber Awareness Training Archives - H2 Cyber Security for SMEs

Data Leakage Explained for SMEs

Stopping data leaks from your organisation is an important part of data protection; it is a subset, if you like, of that ever-evolving subject. The rules are evolving here in the UK, with new legislation coming online, and there is a wide requirement that starts with a good mindset and sound rules and processes to guard your most sensitive data. We refer to data leakage when talking about a service we provide to SMEs, which we don’t like to frame as data protection because it is, as I said, a subset of the requirements. However, it is an important subset that lies at the sharp end of the whole thing.

First of all, let’s clarify what Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is. It is a cybersecurity strategy that identifies, monitors, and prevents sensitive information from being accessed, shared, or transmitted without authorisation, whether accidentally or maliciously, across endpoints, networks, cloud services, and email systems. In short, DLP stops sensitive data from leaving where it shouldn’t.

Sounds great until you investigate such systems, which can be extremely effective if you are a large corporate organisation. That’s because these systems can be very expensive, difficult to set up and come with a heavy admin burden. It’s not terribly surprising that SMEs don’t know much about these systems because the organisations that market them simply don’t target SMEs. After all, SMEs, in general, can’t afford them.

A data leak, however, can be one of the most damaging incidents an SME can face. Unlike large enterprises, SMEs often have fewer financial reserves, less technical expertise, and limited crisis-management capacity, making the impact proportionally greater.

Threats to an SME from Data Leakage

Taking a quick glance through the threats to an SME business from a data leak:

Financial Loss

Legal costs from customer or partner lawsuits.
Compensation payments to affected individuals.
Incident response and forensic investigation costs.
Business interruption losses during system shutdowns.
Regulatory fines (e.g., under data protection laws such as GDPR).

For SMEs, even moderate fines can significantly impact cash flow or survival.

Reputational Damage

Loss of customer trust.
Negative media exposure.
Damage to brand credibility.
Loss of competitive advantage.

SMEs often rely heavily on local reputation or niche trust; once damaged, recovery can be slow and costly.

Loss of Customers and Contracts

Clients may terminate contracts.
Prospective customers may choose competitors.
Larger partners may require stronger security compliance before continuing relationships.

Operational Disruption

Systems may need to be taken offline.
Data recovery efforts consume time and resources.
Staff productivity drops during investigation and remediation.

Theft of Intellectual Property

Loss of trade secrets.
Exposure of proprietary processes.
Competitors gaining access to confidential pricing or strategy information.

Increased Cyber Targeting

Once breached, a company may:

Be seen as an “easy target.”
Experience follow-up phishing or ransomware attacks.
Appear on dark web data marketplaces.

What are the Requirements of a Data Leakage Protection Solution?

In a nutshell, a solution that would fit an SME should be proportionate, cost-effective, scalable, and manageable without a large in-house security team.

Such a system needs to:

Identify sensitive data (customer data, financial records, IP).
Classify data based on sensitivity.
Map where data is stored and who has access.

It needs role-based access control (RBACS) using a least privileged principle, with multi-factor authentication and strong password policies. It needs encryption at rest, preferable file level encryption, and use TLS for encryption in transit with secure key management. Such a system needs to be set up with monitoring, logging, alerting for suspicious activity and periodic audits. It needs backup and recovery.

For SMEs specifically, the solution should be:

Affordable and scalable
- Cloud-friendly
- Easy to manage
- Automated where possible
- Supported by managed security providers (if no internal team exists)

How Do SMEs View Such Systems

All too often, we come up against the attitude that such a loss is very rare amongst SMEs, and the threat doesn’t justify the expenditure. That is often because this is a very under-reported issue, and those that are reported are just the tip of the iceberg.

What Is the Source of the “Tip of the Iceberg” Claim?

The idea comes from multiple types of evidence:

Incident Response & Forensics Data

Cybersecurity firms (e.g., Mandiant, CrowdStrike) publish threat intelligence showing:

Many breaches are only discovered during unrelated audits.
Cyber criminals often maintain access for long periods.

Academic Research

Studies in cybersecurity economics suggest breach reporting underestimates actual intrusion frequency due to:

Asymmetric information.
Underreporting incentives.
Detection bias.

Threat Intelligence Monitoring

Security vendors monitoring criminal forums consistently find large datasets being traded that were never publicly linked to a disclosed breach.

Bottom Line

The consensus among cybersecurity professionals, regulators, and researchers is that publicly reported data breaches represent only a fraction of actual incidents.

The conclusion is based on:

Detection lag data.
Forensic investigations.
Legal reporting thresholds.
Dark web intelligence.
Academic economic modelling.

How Can an SME Protect Itself?

Having waded your way through the reasons why SMEs don’t see much data on this subject and therefore don’t see the threat, I’m going to reward you with the pitch. Yes, H2 does have a managed solution that is designed, priced and operated specifically for SMEs. It’s a solution that isn’t as comprehensive as a full enterprise-grade DLP solution, but it does do the job for an SME.

The key advantages for a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) of using our service in practical, business-focused terms are:

Automates Data Discovery and Protection

The service automatically finds, classifies, and assesses sensitive data (such as customer information, IP, and financial records) across endpoints, servers, cloud applications, and remote devices without manual scanning. This saves SMEs considerable time and decreases dependence on specialised security personnel.

Proactive Risk Reduction

Rather than just alerting after an incident, the service can automatically encrypt or block sensitive data based on risk level, minimising exposure before a breach happens. This helps avoid data leaks and insider mishandling.

Real-Time Monitoring and Alerts

The platform continuously tracks data movement and access, sending notifications for unusual activity. This keeps SMEs aware of potential threats or policy violations, even without a full-time security team.

Simplifies Compliance

The service helps businesses meet data privacy rules like GDPR, PCI, and others by providing reports, audit trails, and documented controls, making audits and regulatory compliance far easier.

Low Maintenance and Fast Deployment

Designed to be lightweight and “set-and-forget”, it can be deployed quickly with little disruption and minimal ongoing management, which is ideal for SMEs that don’t have large IT/security teams.

Cost-Efficient Risk Management

By automating complex security workflows and reducing reliance on manual processes or legacy tools, SMEs can keep security budgets lean while still achieving strong protection.

Centralised Visibility

It comes with a dashboard where you can see where sensitive data resides, who accessed it and what its risk level is, providing clear, actionable insights rather than fragmented logs across multiple systems.

Supports Remote & Hybrid Work

Because it works across cloud, endpoint, and server environments, the service helps secure data no matter where employees work or where the data lives, particularly useful as more SMEs adopt remote/hybrid models.

Reduces Human Error

With automatic classification and encryption, the service helps guard against accidental disclosure, which is a common risk in smaller organisations without dedicated security training.

In summary, for an SME, the service can deliver data leakage protection, risk reduction and compliance support without the heavy cost or complexity typically associated with traditional data loss prevention (DLP) or manual security practices.

Cost is something that is guaranteed to concentrate the mind of the SME owner. This service is priced specifically for SMEs at £15 per user per month. There is no contractual lock-in, and a client can quit with 30 days’ notice. We also offer a 14-day trial to allow a client to see the benefits of the system using their own data, rather than a demo with dummy data. We’d be delighted to discuss this with you further.

MORE ABOUT MANAGED DETECTION AND RESPONSE

This subject has, in the past, been difficult to convey to SMEs. In the corporate and major government department world, it’s a well-understood issue, more often referred to as a security operations centre, or SOC. I’ve built several of these over the years in the UK and the Middle East, and one thing is for sure: they are expensive to run in terms of both technology and manpower, which makes them unrealistic for an SME, even if they would be of real benefit.

So why am I even bothering to explain what it is? Simply because there are now systems on the market, very often AI-driven, that have managed to hit a price point that an SME can afford. These systems may not be as comprehensive as you might find in a large company or central government department, but they do match the requirements for most SMEs.

Why would an SME want such a system? First and foremost, any such system or service pitched to an SME needs to make business sense. To maximise its cost effectiveness, having additional capabilities such as vulnerability assessment, phishing simulations and cyber awareness training programmes makes it more attractive. The whole package needs to emulate enterprise-grade protection without the cost and complexity of a full-blown SOC. Delivering it as a service reduces cost by cutting out the need for an in-house team.

Good questions for all SMEs to ask themselves are:

If an attack or scam happened tomorrow…

Would you know about it?

Would you be able to stop it in time?

Would your team recognise it for what it is?

In a nutshell, an SME would want this system because it delivers near enterprise-level cybersecurity protection, reduces business risk, improves compliance, and protects revenue without needing an internal cybersecurity department. It provides peace of mind – you don’t have to worry about this, let someone else take the strain, while you focus on your business.

To help explain this easily, I have produced a short video which you can find on the Features Section on my LinkedIn profile. But if you don’t want to view that, what follows is an introduction to what the service offers.

Continuous monitoring of endpoints, servers, and some cloud environments
Rapid detection of ransomware, malware, insider threats, and advanced attacks
Expert-led response
Phishing simulations
Cyber awareness training programme
Dark web monitoring

For most SMEs, hiring skilled cybersecurity analysts is expensive and difficult. MDR gives access to an appropriate service level at a predictable monthly cost.

Business benefit: Reduced risk of downtime, data loss, and reputational damage.

This service comes with vulnerability assessment built it. Such assessments are available elsewhere as both software and a service, but they would not be integrated into an overall protection and would need to have a level of expertise to interpret the results.

Vulnerability assessments:

• Identify outdated software, misconfigurations, and exposed services

• Prioritise risks based on severity

• Provide remediation guidance

Most breaches happen because of known, unpatched vulnerabilities. Regular scanning helps prevent attacks before they happen.

Business benefit: Proactive risk reduction instead of reactive damage control.

The system also offers built in protection against human error (Phishing Simulation).

Over 80–90% of cyber breaches start with phishing. A phishing simulation programme:

• Tests employee awareness safely

• Identifies high-risk users

• Reinforces learning through practical scenarios

Business benefit: Fewer successful phishing attacks and reduced likelihood of credential compromise or ransomware infection. Such simulations are an integral part of cyber awareness training.

We also assist in building a security culture (CBEE Awareness Training Programme). A structured awareness programme:

Trains staff on cyber hygiene and data protection
Covers password security, social engineering, safe browsing, etc.
Supports compliance with regulations (GDPR, ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, etc.)

Cybersecurity isn’t just technology, it’s behaviour. Training reduces internal risk significantly.

Business benefit: Employees become a security asset rather than a liability.

A managed system such as this can also help with compliance & insurance requirements. Many SMEs now face:

Regulatory obligations
Supply chain security requirements
Cyber insurance conditions

Having MDR, vulnerability management, and training demonstrates due diligence and can reduce insurance premiums or improve insurability.

These last 2 points are very important to an SME: Cost Predictability & Simplicity. As a managed service, everything is:

Subscription-based
Centralised under one provider
Fully supported by experts

No need to buy multiple tools, manage updates, or maintain in-house expertise.

In business terms you are getting executive-level risk reduction with a simple value:

Reduced likelihood of business interruption
Reduced financial exposure
Protection of brand and customer trust
Clear reporting and measurable risk reduction

All through this article I’ve talked about cost effectiveness. So, what does this service cost? I’ll add the BBC caveat – other systems are available!! We charge £15 per seat per month, and you get a lot for your money. Seems cheap and we’re happy to explain how we can get the price so low. It’s a 30-day rolling contract, no long-term lock in, simply 30 days’ notice to quit. We also offer a totally free 14-day trial that is fully functional so you can see the outputs from your own system, rather than look at demos with dummy data.

LESS FEAR MORE FIXES: WHAT SME LEADERS WANT FROM CYBER SECURITY

That’s a good question and one that I’ve often pondered upon. Cost effectiveness obviously, everyone’s on a budget, especially these days and there is a healthy reluctance to spend money on what is seen as not being your core business.

I would argue that these days IT is part of your core business, or perhaps part of your core business operations. Ask yourselves how many of you can continue business without access to your IT systems and the data they hold. If IT is part of your business operations, then so is its integrity and security.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the reasons why security doesn’t feel like core business to many people:

It’s invisible when it works

If cybersecurity is doing its job, nothing happens. No alerts, no fires to put out, no obvious ROI. Compared to sales, ops, or product delivery, it feels abstract and thankless.

It’s framed as an IT problem, not a business risk

Many SMEs still see cyber as “the IT guy’s job.” Leaders think in terms of revenue, customers, and growth whereas cybersecurity often isn’t translated into those terms.

Short-term survival beats long-term risk

SMEs run lean. Cash flow, hiring, and winning the next customer feel urgent. Cyber risk feels probable someday rather than painful today, so it gets deprioritised.

Lack of personal exposure

If a leader hasn’t personally experienced a cyber incident, or heard a close friends horror story, it’s hard to internalise the risk. Threats feel like something that happens to “big companies” or “other people.”

Complexity and jargon turn people off

Cybersecurity language is often technical, fear-based, or compliance-heavy. When leaders don’t fully understand something, they’re less likely to own it as core strategy.

No clear ownership at the top

In many SMEs there’s no CISO, no risk committee, no board pressure. If no one at leadership level “owns” cyber risk, it floats somewhere below the surface.

Seen as a cost centre, not a value driver

Cybersecurity is usually positioned as insurance or compliance spend, not as something that enables trust, customer retention, or business continuity.

Optimism bias

Many SME leaders quietly think: “We’re too small / not interesting enough to be targeted.” Unfortunately, attackers often prefer SMEs because they’re easier targets.

Now let’s flip the mindset. Cybersecurity starts to feel like it’s part of the core business when it’s framed as:

Protecting revenue not systems.
Protecting customers not servers.
Protecting the ability to operate.

Cyber incidents have to be seen as business stopping events, not just technical inconveniences. Once that is recognised at the top, it tends to be moved into core business territory very quickly.

So, going back to the question I posed above, what do SME owners want from cyber security, assuming now that they truly embrace its importance to the core of the business they are running? I did mention cost effectiveness above and what follows has to be seen in the context of individual budgets, which will necessarily affect the spend. In order to make sure that happens any security spending must be targeted on what is important and indeed, critical to the business, and not just what is thought of as critical or important.

What comes top of my list every time is the protection of critical business data. Think of this in terms of what outcome is wanted. Generally, that means that customer data, financial records, HR data and intellectual property remain confidential and intact. From the angle of cost-effectiveness:

SMEs prefer low-cost but high-impact controls such as strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and encrypted backups rather than expensive enterprise systems.

Preventing a data breach is far cheaper than paying fines, compensation, or suffering reputational damage.

High on the list of importance comes business continuity and minimal downtime. It’s vital that systems stay available so the business can keep operating even after an incident. This generally means simple, automated backups and basic disaster recovery plans that can be pulled own from a shelf, having been regularly updated and tested, and taken into use. Plans must minimise lost sales and staff productivity.

There’s a lot more too this whilst trying to keep it simple. Some headlines:

Compliance and regulatory requirements – industry dependent except for things like PCI, GDPR etc.
Reducing risk to a level that the organisation deems acceptable. What is known as the risk appetite. There is no such thing as 100% security, you are essentially managing risk down to a level you can live with.
Ease of use for staff. Security shouldn’t cause frustration and slow things down.
Predictable costs. Clear, predictable cybersecurity costs that fit within limited budgets.
Reputational and customer trust. Whilst the fallout from loss of trust with your customers can vary from company to company, it is often extremely damaging, especially for companies that hold lots of personal client data. Maintaining trust through basic security measures is far cheaper than trying to rebuild after a breach.

SME owners and managers are usually not looking for “perfect” security. Their focus is on practical outcomes that protect the business without overspending. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security, believing that the technical solutions you have been sold are adequate protection. Ask questions, look for assurance that you have this covered, remember that often the best solutions are procedural not technical. Look at things from the angle of people, process and then technology.

Good Luck!!

Security on Paper vs Security in Practice: What Executives Need to Know

My recent articles have been all about data leakage and I very briefly indicated that we have a solution for that. I am aware though that in cyber security and in fact data protection, technical solutions on their own, are not sufficient. They must be underpinned by sound policies and procedures. One of my favourite quotes, that I probably use too often, but I make no apologies for that, is by a Harvard professor and cyber security evangelist, Bruce Schneier. He says:

If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t understand the technology.

What am I getting at here exactly? Well, some solutions are not about technology and in fact are best done procedurally and with sound cyber awareness training. Other solutions are technical in nature but must be underpinned with sound policies and processes that are rolled out and understood by staff via sound cyber awareness training which covers these policies and processes and why they are necessary.

The great cry from cyber security professionals is – People, Process and then Technology.

For many SMEs, cybersecurity policies do exist but real visibility into cyber risk does not. Policies are often written to satisfy compliance requirements, reassure clients, and demonstrate intent, yet they rarely answer the questions executives care about most: Where are we vulnerable? What could realistically disrupt the business? Are we investing in the right protections?

What we are saying here is that security documentation should be more than a defensive tick box. When policies are actively mapped to vulnerability assessments, they become a powerful source of risk intelligence. Gaps between documented controls and technical reality surface quickly, exposing weaknesses that attackers are far more likely to exploit than auditors are to find.

In an environment where cyber incidents increasingly target smaller organisations, the difference between written policy and operational security is no longer academic. Converting policy into protection is a practical, achievable step that materially reduces risk and one that executive leadership is uniquely positioned to drive.

The trick is understanding what your risks are and what needs protecting and at what level. What we mean is separating out what is highly sensitive, sensitive and not so much. Our system helps you map this and helps you make some informed decisions, but it won’t write your policies for you.

I’ve written articles in the past on risk management and identifying threats and vulnerabilities and mapping them to risks Identifying what could go wrong digitally, understanding how bad it would be for the business, and deciding what to do about it, all within your budget and risk appetite. Think of it like financial or operational risk, just applied to data, systems, and online operations.

You can’t protect everything equally. You don’t need a threat catalogue, just a broad understanding of the common ones that hit SMEs. You can then assess:

Risk = Likelihood × Impact

Translate tech issues into:

Revenue loss
Operational downtime
Legal/regulatory exposure
Reputational damage
Customer trust erosion – reputational damage

What we are looking to do is to decide how we treat each risk. There are really 4 options that you need to think about in terms of each risk:

Reduce – put controls in place (e.g., MFA, backups)
Accept – consciously live with the risk
Transfer – insurance, contracts, outsourcing
Avoid – stop doing the risky thing

There was an interesting post on LinkedIn recently about the Bank of England having just dropped its 2025 CBEST Thematic Report with some interesting findings.

After 13 threat-led penetration tests across UK financial services, the message is clear: most vulnerabilities aren’t sophisticated. They’re foundational.

Passwords stored in spreadsheets and shared drives
Weak MFA enforcement and poor credential hygiene
Inadequate network segmentation
Detection capabilities that couldn’t spot simulated attacks early
Staff still falling for social engineering

The regulators’ call to action is direct:

Harden your systems – patch and configure properly
Fix your credentials management – MFA, strong passwords, no plaintext storage
Detect faster – monitoring and alerting that actually works
Remediate based on risk – with proper oversight, not just tactical patches

What I’m touching upon here is multi layered security, what in the military we referred to as strength in depth. Monitoring systems has often been thought of as too difficult and expensive for SMEs but that’s no longer true and we now have a solution that is affordable and designed specifically for SMEs which handles monitoring but also has some useful addons such as vulnerability assessment, phishing simulations and a built in cyber awareness programme, all within the licence costs, no hidden extras.

More About Data Leakage

Last weeks newsletter was all about data leakage, and I argued that it wasn’t a well understood problem, which doesn’t get the attention it deserves. We all know about data protection, at least at a high level, and we know about the regulatory issues around it, although many take the view that talking about that is scare tactics designed to make you buy something. And OK, it can be just that, but it doesn’t make it any the less real.

We all need to be cognisant of the issues and potential fallout, but it becomes much more of an urgent issue for organisations that depend upon holding and processing large amounts of what is known as Personally Identifiable Information or PII. That is information that can identify a specific individual, either on its own or when combined with other data. PII spans quite a large category of data:

a. Direct identifiers (identify someone immediately)

• Full name

• Social Security number / National ID number

• Passport number

• Driving license number

• Biometric data (fingerprints, facial recognition data)

b. Contact information

• Home or mailing address

• Email address

• Phone number

c. Financial information

• Credit or debit card numbers

• Bank account and routing numbers

• Tax records

• Payment transaction histories

d. Digital & online identifiers

• IP address

• Device IDs (IMEI, MAC address)

• Cookies linked to an individual

• Account usernames (when tied to a real person)

e. Personal characteristics

• Date and place of birth

• Gender

• Marital status

• Employment details

• Education records

f. Sensitive PII (higher risk if exposed)

• Medical and health records

• Insurance information

• Genetic data

• Precise location data

• Criminal history

We all process some data of this kind, if only data pertaining to our own employees, such as payroll information. However, we often hold personal data regarding our customers and suppliers, names, payment details, addresses etc. But consider organisations that store and process data covering many of the categories above. I’m thinking about law firms, financial firms, even real estate agents and recruitment agents, amongst others. Have you thought about the categories of PII you are holding? Have you identified the sensitivity of the data you hold, and protect it accordingly?

It’s also important to understand what PII is not.

Fully anonymised or aggregated data
General information that cannot be tied to a specific person (i.e., “people aged 20–30 in England”).

If you do hold lots of PII that is critical to your business, what do you need to care about? This will depend to a certain extent on what you are holding and processing, but generally:

Protecting reputation above all else
Being seen as a safe pair of hands
Keeping clients and the board confident
Avoiding public embarrassment or loss of trust
Having certainty without complexity

Reputational damage can be far worse than losing say, some money to a scam or ransomware. Firms can often come back from financial loss, but reputational damage is often permanent and fatal. You need to be seen as a safe pair of hands.

A core anxiety is often worrying that if something happens, the organisation wouldn’t be able to confidently explain where the sensitive data is and how it’s protected. Three things that tend to be a common theme amongst those we deal with at the start of their journey:

They know the risk exists
They don’t know how big the problem is
They hope nothing happens before they act

The problem often gets explained like this:

“We don’t really know where all our sensitive data is.”
“I’m relying on trust and assumptions.”
“Our outsourced IT provides storage solutions and gateway security, but they don’t really have a handle on our data.”

At H2 we understand the issues and anxieties. We have a solution that deals with these requirements and has a built-in encryption system, all within the same monthly cost. It’ll cost you nothing to trial it and we’d be very surprised if once you’ve seen it and seen the low monthly charge for the managed service, you don’t want to keep it.

Data Leakage

Cyber Security Policies – A Must Have or a Nice to Have

I’ve written about this a couple of times now but it’s worth reminding people that policies and attendant processes are a cost-effective necessity in terms of cyber security. How important are policies and processes in comparison with technology, when it comes to Cyber Security and its sister discipline, data protection. The clue is that in Cyber Security we refer to People, Process and Technology, in that order.

Top of this list is People, and I’ve written extensively about how important cyber awareness training is for all, managers and employees alike. This piece is all about policies and processes. First and foremost, policies have to be relevant to the organisation and not just downloaded from the internet, maybe with a few modifications, before applying a tick in the box and moving on. Policies have to mean something and have a purpose. Many organisations I go to either have some very scant policies or actually, none at all.

I often talk about risk in terms of cyber security and how managing that risk is extremely important. And that means understanding what those risks actually are, and then taking steps to mitigate them. When I talk about this, I can often see the wheels turning and the audience thinking technology and how much is that going to cost them. Well, it’s often the case that technology is not the answer. There are many risks where a good policy, promulgated to, and understood by all, can save the company money.

A good example of that is a fairly common scam that tends to costs SMEs between 5 and 50K depending upon the size of business. How this is achieved is that the scammer or let’s call him/her what he/she is, the criminal, spends some time profiling the company, using various social engineering techniques to work out how the company is organised and who is who. You may be surprised as to how much of that information is freely available on the company website, companies house and other sources. Having discovered who the boss is, and who looks after invoice payments, the criminal then ‘spoofs’ the bosses email. Email spoofing, in simple terms, is sending an email purporting to come from someone else. So, it arrives purporting to come from the boss, but it’s from the scammer. Such an email is sent to the person who pays invoices, with an invoice attached, saying please pay this as a matter of urgency. This happened not so lo g ago to someone I know, and when it arrived in the accounts department it didn’t look genuine to the payments clerk, who replied to the email asking if the boss was sure. Of course, she got an email back saying yes, I’m sure. She paid it and the company lost over 30K. The accounts clerk was clearly switched on but she made a basic error, because she didn’t know any different. If she had sent a fresh email to the boss querying the invoice, it would have gone to the boss who could have stopped the transaction. Instead, she replied to the email and her reply went back to the scammer. A policy which dictates fresh emails rather than using the reply function, and known to all, would have saved the company a lot of money.

Policies and attendant processes are essential for the protection of company data and the bottom line, company money. What needs to be covered and in what depth, depends on the risks that the company is facing, and will differ company to company depending on its type. In broad terms, and as an absolute minimum, the following are required:

Overarching IT security policy – often this only needs to say very clearly what responsibilities employees have in regard to security and data protection, lay down a requirement and responsibility for cyber awareness training, and state that all employees are to be cognisant of all the policies and are to sign that they have read and understood them. And most importantly, it must be signed off at board level making it clear that this is a crucial requirement.
IT Acceptable Use Policy – what is, and what is not, an acceptable use for company IT.
IT Email Policy
IT password policy
IT Mobile working policy – essential for mobile workers who may be tempted to work from a coffee shop, and of course, working from home. This latter might be a separate policy or can be part of the mobile working policy.
Data Protection Policies – a whole other subject.
Social media policy – this can be really important. Probably 100% of your employees will have a social media presence and will use it daily. How important is it that they don’t associate themselves with the company on their private social media? Depends on the person but it could be damaging in reputational terms. The company might also do some digital marketing on social media. Who is, and who is not, allowed to get involved with that function.

This is not an exhaustive list. It depends very much on risks that needs mitigating. They will also be accompanied by processes to support the policy.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

What’s this all about and why would it be of any benefit to you? The first part is easy to explain but the second is a little more problematic. MDR is a cybersecurity service designed to help organisations, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats without needing their own large security team. That latter bit is important for an SME simply because they don’t have the expertise or resources to do this themselves, neither can they rely upon their local IT provider to do this for them, even if only because it almost certainly won’t be in your service contract.

What does it give you:

Capability	Why it matters to SMEs
Around-the-clock monitoring	Cyber threats don’t stick to business hours – MDR providers watch systems 24/7.
Threat detection using modern tools	Uses advanced analytics, machine learning, and threat intelligence that SMEs typically can’t afford or manage internally.
Rapid Incident Response	Can remotely contain and remediate attacks before they spread.
Security expertise on demand	SMEs gain access to required expertise.
Proactive threat hunting	Identifies hidden attackers or early-stage breaches.
Compliance and reporting	Helps SMEs meet regulations (e.g., GDPR, Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001) with clear reports.

The above describes a full service, SMEs do have the choice of selecting a full response or an alerting service which also gives guidance on what to do i.e. helps manage a response by you.

It’s important to understand what an MDR is not:

Not a replacement for basic security hygiene (patching, backups, strong access controls)
Not just a tool, it’s a combination of technology + human expertise
Not “set and forget”, you still must collaborate on remediation decisions

So now we understand what MDR is, let’s look at why you might want it. SMEs are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals due to limited in-house security resources. An MDR service provides continuous monitoring, advanced threat detection, and rapid incident response, improving cyber resilience while reducing operational burden and cost. Implementing MDR will significantly reduce the company’s cybersecurity risk and support compliance, business continuity, and customer trust. And if you think this is all over the top let’s remember Knights of Old, they were an established trucking company who moved a lot of what you might call just in time goods, i.e. perishables. They were hit with a ransomware attack and went under in a frighteningly short time.

So just to crystallise the problem, current security controls are designed to be preventative and are largely reactive, with no proactive elements to them. They lack:

24/7 threat monitoring
Real-time detection and investigation
Specialised expertise required for modern cyber threats
Rapid response capability to contain breaches

As a result, you potentially face::

Increased probability of a successful attack
- Delayed breach response → attackers remain undetected for months
- Data exfiltration and business disruption
Higher financial and operational impact if one occurs
Non-compliance with data protection obligations (e.g., GDPR, industry standards)
Reputational damage and loss of customer confidence
Insurance coverage gaps (cyber insurers increasingly mandate MDR-level monitoring)
Greater operational and legal fallout from incidents

The trick for many SMEs would be finding a solution that is suitable for them and just as importantly affordable. A good fit could be:

Affordable subscription model with no costly infrastructure
Bridges the cybersecurity skills shortage
Improves resilience against ransomware, phishing, insider threats, and more
Scales as the business grows

SMEs would also need to consider whether they need a full response service or an alerting service level. The latter is obviously cheaper and maybe more appropriate for many. The coverage they should be looking for needs to include:

Endpoints (laptops, servers)
Cloud workloads (Microsoft 365, Azure, etc)
Identity services (Active Directory)
Network visibility
Email security
Remote workforce monitoring

I hope that this provides food for thought as I know many SMEs will not have considered this type of service or if they have, they will have dismissed it as too expensive and probably over the top. And for many years this would have been just that. I first got involved with this back in 2002 and built several security operations centres over the years, including staffing levels and processes.

Generally, these have been way too expensive for an SME to consider. But that has changed now, there are services available which are designed for SMEs, and which are affordable and appropriate. Now I know you’ve been waiting for the pitch and here it comes. At H2 we provide such a service which is very affordable, and we are happy to stack it up against others. We offer a 14 day totally free trial, that covers your whole estate, i.e. not restricted to one or two systems, or departments, but your whole organisation.

Innovation – Why Do Many Shy Away from it?

We are, by nature, somewhat reserved I think, and we like to trust the known and proven, rather than the unknown and as yet, unproven. How many of us like to be the first to by the latest model of a car, or the latest ‘phone. The same applies to our IT infrastructure and security. Something might advertise some really great innovations, but we want to see someone else try it first, just to be sure.

I read an interesting piece where the thrust was that true innovation consists of doing now what you should have done ten years ago. Harsh, maybe, but also fair. I’m constantly reading industry surveys which highlight the low level of cybersecurity maturity amongst large firms and, increasingly, an even lower level amongst smaller firms. We never seem to learn.

So, what are we referring to here. In a nutshell, the creation and adoption of new technologies, strategies, and practices that improve the protection of digital systems, data, and networks from cyber threats. It goes beyond simply maintaining existing defences, it’s about staying ahead of attackers by introducing smarter, more efficient, and more resilient security methods.

My focus remains on SMEs, so I’ll skip more talk about the corporate world. In conversation with people I’ve worked with for years, their anecdotal evidence supports the underlying truth of these surveys. SMEs in particular struggle with the basics of good cybersecurity housekeeping, such as monitoring of basic network events, timely removal of user accounts, timely deployment of security patches, and revalidation of access level, particularly privileged access. This list is far from exhaustive, and this message has been pushed over and over by cybersecurity professionals over the last 10-15 years, but SMEs continue to rely on technical solutions which simply don’t stack up in many areas. Why? Simple, because they are relying on local IT providers to give them solutions and those IT providers continue to push the technologies that they sell. SME owners and managers are very reluctant to relinquish that argument. Strange when often the best solutions are procedural and as such, much cheaper than a technology that probably doesn’t quite match up anyway.

Before we go any further, let’s briefly explore some issues that are common amongst SMEs. Some common myths first:

Small to medium size businesses are not worth attacking.
Cyber Security is an IT Issue.
Technology will keep me safe.
My policies and procedures are up to the job.
My staff are young and have been brought up with IT. They know the score.

Now let’s look at some of the more common issues that we see often amongst SMEs:

Lack of awareness around the current real-world cybersecurity risks
False sense of security, with a heavy reliance and dependence on an external IT third-party provider
Lack of cybersecurity knowledge, and understanding
Poor cybersecurity maturity and posture within their businesses
Lack of staff training (at all levels) – just like Health & Safety, cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility.

Back to the topic in hand, innovation and how and when should we be seriously considering it. Ideally, we should be constantly looking for innovations, not just to keep us safe, but to encourage efficiency and cost savings, and I’m sure all SME owners would love to have the time and resource to do just that. But we live in the real world and SMEs will be cost, and resource constrained. But that’s not an excuse to not keep a weather eye on the need to innovate. We live in a changing world and what we in the business call the threat landscape, changes constantly. This simply means that threats evolve all the time, often to meet new circumstances, and AI for instance, is reducing the response time of cyber criminals to new technologies and changes in working patterns, to almost what is known as the zero day threat, ie zero days from the release of something new, to a threat being created to exploit it.

When COVID hit, many SMEs had to move very quickly to keep going, adopting remote working without the time or luxury of any real planning. It was a knee jerk born of necessity and certainly not the way they would have liked to do it. There are multiple cases of companies not having the necessary equipment, in terms of hardware, desktop, laptops etc, and allowing staff to work from home using their own home machines, connecting to both office and cloud-based systems, without any check on how those machines were configured, whether or not they were kept up to date with the latest patches, or whether they were used by other family members.

In terms of equipment, cloud usage and some working practices, that situation is righting itself, sort of. There are now surveys by HR consulting companies, suggesting that 60 to 70% of companies of all sizes are either planning to, or have adopted a hybrid model. In the IT industry, particularly amongst IT consultancies, this model has been in use for many years and is well regarded, allowing the downsizing of office space and a lower cost base. That new working model has arguably had the biggest effect on working practices and in turn, cyber security as it affects SMEs, since the innovation of IT itself.

So, what needs to be done if hybrid working patterns are to continue? Well, first and foremost comes your policies. Do they reflect the new hybrid working model? Have you laid down what is and what is not an acceptable use of company IT equipment if it’s being transported to a home address? Do you allow the use of home machines, and have you laid down how those machines must be configured before they can be used for company business? That list is not exhaustive.

Secondly comes user training. Cyber awareness training for staff, along with a broad understanding of data protection principles, becomes even more important when staff are working from home. It is a clear no brainer which many SMEs still don’t recognise as necessary.

Of course, those 2 things are hardly innovation, unless of course, you haven’t taken any of those measures and then it becomes innovative within your company. Real innovation perhaps comes from reviewing the technologies you have in place, and have relied on, possibly for years. Most, if not all those technologies will be based on the old bastion model of security, ie a network perimeter with a secure gateway, protecting your assets within that perimeter. With the new working model, relying usually on cloud connectivity, your staff could be working in the office, at home, from a coffee shop etc etc. You now have a mobile workforce. What is needed is real innovation that protects your data regardless of where it is, technologies which themselves are cloud based, not caring where the end point it is monitoring actually is, whilst maintaining cost effective pricing. This is something we’ve been at great pains to research and have now come up with such solutions.

How one SME coped with the fall out of a cyber attack

We talk a lot about how to protect ourselves from cyber-attacks and the potential for how easy or difficult it is for cyber criminals to attack companies of all sizes and types, but we don’t often describe real events which could impact those companies until they actually happen, and then, we often only get the information that they want us to have.

So, we thought we’d try and do just that, albeit in a sanitised way (with permission) to protect the privacy of the company involved.

Background

The target was a small. To medium sized design agency based in the UK. They manage branding and marketing materials for a significant number of clients, many of whom share confidential product data and campaign details before public release. And of course, the company held their own confidential data regarding their operations, finances and personnel.

For years, this agency relied on a mix of free antivirus software, shared passwords, and basic email communication. Like many SMEs, cybersecurity wasn’t seen as a priority until the day that all changed!

So, what happened?

One Friday morning, a manager noticed that all shared project files on their network drive had strange extensions and couldn’t be opened. A ransom note appeared on every folder:

“Your files have been encrypted. Pay x amount of Bitcoin to recover them.”

The team had been hit by ransomware.
Their business was paralysed, and they couldn’t access their admin and finance systems or their client work, deadlines loomed, and panic set in.

The IT contractor confirmed the bad news: a staff member had unknowingly clicked a link in a fake invoice email that mimicked a well-known supplier. The malware spread across the network overnight.

At this point many companies fall into complete disarray simply because they haven’t got a disaster recovery and business continuity plan and they have no way of operating their systems manually. Management will be demanding to know how long they can manage without their IT systems and how long it will take to get everything up and running, without paying the ransom. The IT company will be pressured about backups; are there any and if so when can they be restored, which is when of course they realise that without their systems, there is nothing to restore the backups to.

The IT company confirmed that they did have backups stored off-site as part of the contract but that daily backups were stored on site and that the onsite backup server was also compromised, and the off-site backups were taken once a week, which meant that as by this time it Tuesday, the off-site backups were 2 days old. But much better than nothing.

The problem remained that they had deadlines to meet and if they didn’t want to lose clients and have their reputation in their industry shattered, they had very little time. Reluctantly the management made the decision to pay the ransom which meant they had to go cap in hand for extra funding as they operated on tight margins and the ransom in pounds was close to £150k.

This got them back online and saved their projects and reputation but at a cost that really hurt and not just in financial terms, but in their pride as managers. It really stung. They knew that had to bite the bullet and take cyber security seriously. They realised that their local IT company, although excellent in keeping their network up and running efficiently as well as providing their hardware and software, and kept strictly to the terms of the contract, was not going to protect them to the level that they needed.

The rebuild

Having got everything back up and running they were seriously worried that they might get hit again quickly, before they had a chance to sort things out. There was no room for complacency but at the same time they had to go forward with a strategic plan. So, they brought in a specialist cybersecurity company who guided them through a strategy to not just recover, but to protect themselves going forward.

One of the first things they learnt is that cyber security is a business issue and not a technical one. Management must own it and understand it. It starts with people, having the right people in the right place who understand, at least at a high level, the issues and how to take basic precautions to protect themselves and the business. Then comes policy and process, coming down from the top, regularly reviewed and updated by management, and promulgated to all staff with regular reminders. Once that’s in place we can look at technology. Noone had articulated that to them before.

The first thing their new cyber partner did was to devise a high-level strategy that the company could adopt going forward. They explained that it needn’t be complicated and in fact, the simpler and easier to understand, the better. Keep tech jargon out of it and use plain English. They came up with a plan which identified some quick wins to protect them quickly, before coming up with more detailed projects that could be phased in over time.

The quick wins were:

Cyber awareness training for all staff including management. Let’s make sure no one ever clicks a link they shouldn’t. The training should be done at induction and then refreshed regularly throughout the year. It can be run by the HR staff or a HR company under contract if that is the case.

Produce policies starting with a high-level policy signed off by the CEO which clearly outlines everyones responsibility for cyber security and who is responsible for the detailed polices which will underpin this top-level policy.

Enforced multi factor authentication (MFA) for all logins and a password manager to replace the spreadsheets they were using.

This is then followed by more detailed projects phased in over time. The phasing helps to ensure that there is not too much disruption to the business operations and that staff can be carried along with it, ensuring their buy in. It also helps to make sure that it fits in with the company budget and doesn’t hit the bottom line all at once. It included:

An examination of the contract with the IT company and making any revisions that might be necessary. For example, the back-up regime.

Migrated to a cloud-based file system with built-in versioning and encryption (in this case MS365 was chosen which is a favourite go to for SMEs and was offered by their IT support company).

Every employee completed simulated phishing exercises as part of the awareness training.

A detailed incident response plan was produced which clearly detailed who was responsible for what, who to contact and what to do, in a prioritised order. It also outlined a business continuity plan written by departmental heads, showing how the company would continue to operate whilst systems are recovered.

Identification of assets, i.e. databases, client information, HR data, financial data, project plans etc, to prioritise what data needs to be protected to what level.

Identity and access management review with a view to moving to a zero-trust access control system.

Consider applying for cyber essentials certification.

The Outcome

Within six months, they were back on track and stronger, much more resilient. They were, like most companies, hit with phishing attempts all the time but their employees were trained to recognise them instantly and knew who to report it to. No one clicked the link.

Clients noticed the change, too. The company started to include a short “data protection and security” statement in their contracts, which won them new business. Larger clients trusted them more because they could prove their cyber resilience. They were now committed to Cyber Essentials and would include that logo on their website and advertising as soon as they qualified.

The big lesson

Their experience shows that cybersecurity isn’t just an IT issue — it’s a business survival issue. Even small steps, awareness, MFA, and secure backups, can transform an SME from a target into a resilient organisation.

Cyber Awareness Training