Southampton: Aura and Spinlock featured in BBC report

Southampton-based Aura and its client Spinlock have been featured in a BBC report outlining the increasing risk of ransomware to businesses.

Tim Walker, managing director at Aura, and Chris Hill, CEO of Spinlock, spoke to BBC South Today to warn businesses in the region about the growing threat of ransomware, which is used by cyber criminals to hold businesses to ransom to decrypt files.

Spinlock, a global leader in the manufacture and design of premium sailing safety equipment, based in Cowes, Isle of Wight, experienced a ransomware threat prior to Aura becoming its Managed IT services provider. No data was lost during the incident, but specialists at Aura have since worked to further strengthen the organisation’s IT security and back-up capacity.

Chris Hill, CEO of Spinlock, told the BBC: “A member of staff received an email and they saw something they thought might be interesting. So they clicked on the attachment and from there we quickly realised this was having some other impact whereby files were becoming encrypted.

“We’re very process driven and rely very heavily on the system for every function in the organisation. Therefore, it pretty quickly grinds to a halt at that point.”

Tim Walker told the BBC: “Ransomware is probably the fastest-growing form of attack that we’ve seen and they are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

“You would take sensible precautions if you were stepping out and crossing the road – you would look both ways and make sure you had locked your door when you left your house.

“There’s no difference in business. Life is far fuller and your business will do far more if it is engaging wholly on the internet, but you just need to take some sensible security precautions.”

Aura has produced a free downloadable guide, giving businesses practical steps on how to protect themselves from ransomware. Download the guide here.

To find out more about Aura’s work with Spinlock, click here.