Salisbury-based IT firm say protect your data amid cyber-attack fears

The government say cyber-attacks could soon rise

Author: Aaron HarperPublished 20th Apr 2023

The National Cyber Security Centre are concerned of an increase in cyber attacks due to the rise in demand for so-called “Hackers for Hire”.

Hackers use ‘Spyware’ to gather information on their victims and then sell the data to others or hold it for ransom.

We spoke to Christoph Kuhle, Director at Hive Communications in Salisbury, and he explained further:

“What spyware does is it gives a threat actor the ability to see what's going on, on your computer. So they have put some form of software or program onto a computer that now can just give them information.

“They can then use that however they want to in future to either now run a program which might.

Give you ransomware, which now changes the file extension of every single program, and they say you need to give us this much money or they can take the data that you might have.”

These “threat actors” sit unnoticed for an average of 200 days collecting information, doing what is known as “living off the land”.

Christoph said: “For 200 days they are watching what you're doing, they're watching who you talk to. They're working out all the data that you've got. They're working out. What are your big projects?”

Cost of cybercrime

In 2020, cyber criminals made an estimated $1.5 trillion, which means cybercrime is three-times larger than illicit drug trading.

And while cyber crime is a serious matter, Christoph offered advice on how to protect ourselves from hackers.

“Password management is critical,” he said, “82% of workers have admitted to using the same credentials.

“Browsers give you one way of doing it, as long as your browser is secure. And there are password managers, where you can pay and guarantee every single password you have is unique, long and strong.”

Christoph also added that multi-factor authentication, where a second stage of verification is required, such as entering a code or facial recognition, as well as anti-virus and anti-malware software will aid in protecting our data.

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