Wynne Jones IP: What should your business be doing to protect itself from cyber security and IP?
Business leaders know that a cyber attack can severely damage and disrupt their company. Yet many underestimate the scope and depth of the threat.
The below article provided by Wynne-Jones IP covers the basics of cyber security and protecting your IP.
What is cyber security?
Although cyber security appears to be a highly technical topic, cyber security is no longer only a technical issue. Wider digitization brings exposure to an increased number of threats if not managed properly. Business leaders need to manage and mitigate any possible risk as much as they can.
According to a recent report it took organisations an average of 99 days to detect cyber-attacks within their network. This length of time gives attackers a sufficient stint to do some serious damage while remaining undetected.
Cyber security and Intellectual Property
With the increasing number of threats in focus, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) primarily aims to let the individuals have full control over their own personal data and simplify data transactions for the business environment within the European Union.
Intellectual Property (IP) as a crucial part of the business environment allows businesses to have a commercial advantage over competitors. If IP is stolen, it is important to detect the theft quickly and react accordingly.
In case of IP or trade secret theft (subject to new legislation), forensic investigation is important from several aspects such as how the attack happened and what are the sources as well as root cause of attacks.
Preventative measures require proper policies and procedures, employee protections, and systems to be imposed. It is vital to have all staff on board and understand these policies and procedures from the CEO down. Everyone needs to have a clear understanding how to deal with a cyber threat.
Cyber security Solutions
The UK Government has been actively promoting the IP Cybersecurity initiative which aims to help SME’s better understand and better protect their business from increasing threat of IP cybercrime.
This “SME Guide to IP Cybersecurity”, explains what current threats for small businesses are and how these threats can be reduced to minimum.
A further step for implementing best practices regarding cyber security is to engage with the Cyber Essentials scheme. The Cyber Essentials scheme aims to help organisations implement basic levels of protection against cyber attack, and develop cyber security knowledge, strategy and experience.