TalkTalk and now Vodafone are among the latest high profile organisations to suffer from a cyber- security breach or ‘hack’. However just because you run a small business don’t believe that you are safe from the cyber criminals. According to research published by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) 38% of small businesses surveyed were attacked by an unauthorised outsider. In fact, in a number of the high profile cases last year larger organisations were infiltrated via a smaller supplier or sub-contractor because their security was easier to circumvent.

Another interesting statistic the survey highlights is that 44% of small businesses increased their spending on Information Security (up from 27% the previous year). This shows that almost half the small businesses surveyed are aware they can no longer fly under the ‘hacker’ radar and that they could be at much at risk as the larger international companies.

A point that all Small Businesses should recognise is that stateful packet inspection is no longer enough to keep your systems safe. Routers with built in firewall options should really be replaced with a Next Generation Firewall (or better like Watchguard’s UTM systems) as these will not only stop the traffic that isn’t wanted, but will also inspect and interrogate the traffic that is allowed through finding those hidden dangers and security threats that will help the business minimise any potential cost caused by a security breach.