Crowe UK considers Cybercrime – are you at risk?

Fraud and cybercrime account for over 50% of all crime today in England and Wales, with a 92% increase in incidents of cybercrime since April 2020. The need for businesses to be vigilant has never been so acute.

Jim Gee, Partner and Head of Forensics and Counter Fraud, Crowe U.K. LLP looks at the importantance of cyber security for businesses.

Criminals target your data to sell to third parties, use themselves, or extort money from you.

A tidal wave of cybercrime is now hitting businesses due to lockdowns, home-working and a much heavier reliance than ever before on web-based services.

The crime statistics show that at this very moment there are people out there contemplating how they can dishonestly thrive at the expense of legitimate businesses. There will also be people under financial pressure, scheming to maintain their wealth by dishonest means. Your business needs robust protective measures in place.

Investing in cyber security does not need to break the bank and will pay dividends in the long-term. Home Office research shows small and medium sized companies experience substantial costs in dealing with the impact of cybercrime. Much of which would have been reduced had they implemented cost-effective protection.

Before we even thought of national lockdowns, in 2019, an SME incurred over £80,000 in costs dealing with the consequences of a cybercrime incident. Another lost £40,000 and 70% of their customers as a result of a hacking attack. Unfortunately, cautionary stories like this are not one-offs and have been on the rise since early 2020, with figures up over the past 12 months.

I have spent years educating, monitoring and helping companies to avoid cybercrime.  For those unfortunate enough to realise they need support only after an attack, I can help them rebuild systems, install new hardware, operating systems, patches, application software and restore databases.  Most importantly I can identify what happened and make sure lessons are learnt while also minimising future cyber risk.

Every business has a duty of care to ensure that adequate protective measures are in place to maintain data security and to deter and prevent crime.  Don’t be complacent and don’t think it couldn’t possibly happen to you.  Businesses with this mindset are often the easiest to attack.

A cybercrime or data protection incident can result in reputational damage, financial loss, and public embarrassment, as well as fines of up to £20 million from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

We have a free Cyber Vulnerability Scorecard available online: 

Survey - Crowe UK Cybercrime (crowecybercrime.com)

This was devised in collaboration with other cyber experts and it is truly worthwhile taking the time to complete the scorecard.  The self-assessment questions reveal how attractive your organisation is to cyber criminals, the potential damage a cyber breach would cause and the strength or weakness of your cyber security and resilience.

To find out more about how we can help you protect against cybercrime or recover from an attack contact me jim.gee@crowe.co.uk

www.crowe.com/uk