As a business owner, are you aware if..

If your staff possess the know-how to protect your business from cyber criminals?

If your systems are sophisticated in simplicity, yet multi-layered enough to protect your assets?

To what degree is your business effective in responding to a computer hack?

Once upon a time, the word ‘hacker’ was a term of endearment to describe someone who hacked away at a job until the job was done. Today, we use it for someone up to mischief in cyberspace.

There are people who call themselves white hat hackers - claiming to hack for the greater good. Such people are often paid to try and compromise a target such as a company or organisation.

This industry is known as ethical hacking. We should be thankful to anyone who performs what is known as ethical hacking so long as they hold on to the intention of fighting the good fight.

However, we need to focus on preventing those with criminal intentions who want in on your accounts, your money and your data as they are the reason why ethical hackers exist. The term 'black hat hacker' has been attributed to someone who wants your accounts, money or data.

You could be a crimson-hat hacker but a fraud is a fraud at the end of the day. Some who were believed to be white hat hackers have been put on trial for cyber crime so beware not to buy in to the labels with the glitter and mirrors.

It used to be cheeky teens hacking for kudos from their mates and to ride the wave of superlatives. Nowadays, it's creative and intelligent criminals possessing a skillset capable of making money out of you or anyone susceptible to falling foul to their blurred lines of persuasion.

There are small and large hacking groups and criminal organisations ranging in size. There are also loosely connected hacking groups operating from the dark web. They don't build solid relationships. Their connections are mostly via the web or via some common political or moralistic agenda. There are also solo hackers who operate alone. The skills of these hackers vary massively. About 95% of hackers are commonly known as script kiddies; a term used for someone running a hacking script already written for them so all they have to do is run the run script and let it do the work.

Still – it could be a perilous act or inaction on your part if you underestimate them.

The other 5% are skilled and pose a greater threat to you. Skilled hackers create and sell their tools to the script kiddies on underground markets. This is known as “hacking-as-a-service”.

Their expertise in designing the tools enables script kiddies to be just as destructive.

Given the technical nature of the tools they use, If the same people spent as much time on legitimate businesses, they possess both skill and intelligence and would probably make a very decent living.

However, they don't spend their time on legitimate businesses. They choose to operate on the dark side of the web and until they choose otherwise, they are more than aware their skillset is greater than most in legitimate businesses.

Feel free to get in touch and speak to one of our engineers who can help you.