Gloucester City Council suffered from a data breach in December which affected many of their online services. So far the financial cost for recovering from this cyberattack is £250,000 but people within the council are worried that the final costs will be much higher. Jeremy Hilton who leads the Liberal Democrats has said “I suspect the £630,000 already put aside is not nearly enough. I expect many council services to continue to suffer.”
The council has been working with the NCSC (National Cyber Security Center) and the NCA (National Crime Agency) after the breach was linked to Russian hackers. The NCSC recently published a report warning of the increased risk from Russian threat actors due to the invasion of Ukraine. Costs of cyber attacks are rising at an alarming rate and things like ransomware as a service (RaaS) are becoming more readily available for people with little to no knowledge.
It’s not just financial costs that are worrying too, the cost of time and reputation is also a big factor. Companies are spending a lot of time they could be spending on bettering their business fixing cyber attacks. With all resources focusing on the attack, it leads to a lesser focus on your customers, meaning they get a worse experience.
If the proper precautions are in place, the cost could be minimal. Some of these precautions are as simple as limiting the number of people that have admin access, making sure you have a strict password policy, and most importantly, making sure your team is educated on what to look out for as 90% of cyber-attacks are caused by human error.
Cyber Wise can help with educating your employees, with our monthly targeted courses and simulated phishing emails, we can learn your teams’ weaknesses and ensure they get the education they need to be strong team members.