Having recently suffered the annoyance of having my bank card details cloned, no doubt at a cash machine on one of my various foreign excursions, security is at the front of my mind - especially given the massive inconveniences it has caused me in the meantime; I have virtually had to put my life on hold.

This all brings to mind the many and various ways that we can have our lives invaded by those that wish to do us harm. Whether it be at work with confidential and proprietary business information or at home with personal banking information. This can cause everyone concerned massive inconvenience, like having to wait 10 days for a new bank card, or the implications that the loss of company data can have for an organisation.

Prevention is better than cure in all cases and being vigilant and putting in place appropriate safeguards is the best defence. This defence is best implemented in a multi-layered fashion, the first line of defence is ensuring that all users have a 'strong' password that is known only to them (strong meaning more than 8 characters containing a mixture of numbers, lower and upper case letters, and punctuation marks).

The next simplest measure is to have correct internal policies signed and recorded ensuring all staff understand and have signed up to the IT policies such as agreeing not to access inappropriate content while at work and not to send emails containing inappropriate content, all of which can have serious legal and financial implications for businesses and business owners (the use of your internet connection is your responsibility).

The next is to implement a proper firewall with correctly formed policies preventing the bad guys from getting in; while this is rare it is a risk that someone may gain access and use your systems for sinister purposes or simply to cause malicious damage.

Despite everything, the greatest risk can sometimes come from within and as such, the next safeguard is to have proper policies, procedures and, if necessary, preventative software/hardware in place to ameliorate the risk of people allowing information to get out (accidentally or maliciously). Software and hardware devices currently available on the market can help protect against all of these risks and can prove to be very powerful tools and, should someone decide to remove information from your network, these measure can provide hard and fast proof of any improper behaviour.

A further protective measure is to have proper, comprehensive backup solutions in place protecting your data so that, in the event of accidental deletion, natural disaster or malicious action, data can be preserved and your critical business information successfully restored in the minimum time possible.

Naturally, all of these safeguards come with a number of trade-offs; whether it be privacy, cost, or convenience, a sacrifice has to be made in the name of security. As with all things a balance has to be struck and taking expert advice on the likely risks and implications for your particular circumstances is the best first step.

Needless to say Blue Frontier have experience in all of the above areas, if you would like to speak to us with regard to your network security or any other issues, please give us a call on 01722 744 574.