Securing your Business:

Having supported UK businesses for over 20 years, we have a wealth of experience in securing our customers’ data. In that time, we’ve identified the three key areas that you must secure to keep your information safe.

Cybersecurity is a vital aspect of operating a business in the ‘always online world’, given that (according to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport), 39% of businesses experienced an attack in 2022, and the combined short- and long-term costs to resolve a breach was over £12,000 for a medium sized business. Therefore, ensuring robust cyber security should be (and remain) a consistent focus for your stakeholders!

In this blog we discuss the three critical aspects to prevent your business from experiencing such lofty costs. Alternatively, feel free to get in touch with our expert team to explore all the ways Windsor can protect your business-critical data!

Let’s start with all the physical devices that need protecting…

1. Next-Gen Firewall and Endpoint Protection

Potentially due to the recent surge in Cloud application usage, cyberattacks are now more commonly targeting the higher layers up to layer 7 (the application layer). This prompted security hardware providers to design the latest generation to span the entire OSI framework, ensuring the most robust protections possible.

The most recent (third) generation of Firewall technology now inspects the data contained within packets, such as your voice calls, rather than simply filtering the IP headers, going far beyond the filtering capabilities of the previous generation (up to the 4th transport) layer of the OSI model.

“You can think of firewalls like going through an airport. Previous generations were like pat-downs, whereas now we can scan inside data packets to ensure there’s no malicious code hidden away!”
Nick Shepperd, Product & Marketing Director, Windsor Telecom

This ensures that all internet traffic flowing across your network is heavily scrutinised, leveraging a combination of Intrusion Prevention, Malware Protection and Application Intelligence & Control, to secure your business-critical data.

Plus, real-time visualisation enables IT managers and Managed Service Providers (like Windsor Telecom) to keep an eye out for any unusual behaviour – which brings us onto our next essential aspect for keeping your data safe!

2. Proactive Monitoring and Maintenance

The cybersecurity landscape is constantly changing and evolving, as new threats emerge. Therefore, a birds-eye view across all your network traffic is essential – as well as someone to manage the systems that keep your business safe.

However, the cost of hiring an IT Manager is prohibitive for most SMEs, and even with the resources, those roles are in such high demand you may struggle to find someone to fill the role promptly!

That’s where our Network Defence solutions can support your business, with the ability to detect, analyse, and prevent multiple attack types, including ransomware, advanced threats, and targeted attacks.

“A 360-degree view enables us to see emerging threats and intercept them before they materialise and cause any damage for far less than the cost of hiring internally. And by delivering a central solution that encompasses the entire network, we can push out updates as soon as they become available, ensuring our customers are constantly at the forefront of recent security advances.”
Nick Shepperd, Product & Marketing Director, Windsor Telecom

Windsor Telecom cost-effectively protects businesses no matter their size or scope!
Read our case study to see how we manage Age UK Gloucestershire’s IT and safeguard its data.

3. Cloud Applications and Endpoint Protection

Now that the network itself has robust protections and visibility across its traffic, we must look to the end-points – the people and devices that all traffic originates from.

Your staff, and the devices they use regularly, must also be protected to ensure they don’t act as the entry vector for malicious attacks.

Credentials such as usernames and password can be better protected against phishing attacks by simply enabling Two-factor Authentication (2FA). This can be applied to a wide range of accounts and devices (mobiles, laptops, tablets etc.) to ensure only the right people can access your information.

It’s especially important for email applications, as the majority of phishing attacks stem from malicious emails (that appear to be from a reputable source), prompting users to add their usernames and passwords for hackers to then use to access your information.

“We use premium email security software to ensure that your communications are safeguarded, operating from inside Microsoft 365 severs and leveraging artificial intelligence to detect signs of spear phishing, account takeover, and business email compromise.”
Nick Shepperd, Product & Marketing Director, Windsor Telecom

Hybrid Cloud Security is also essential, given that over 40% of business workloads currently leverage public cloud services, which are expected to rise to more than 70% by 2027!

With most modern businesses relying on Cloud services for CRM, storage, banking, invoicing software, and more it’s important that data stemming from those applications isn’t intercepted or already holding malicious code to be deployed inside the network.

Again, we have the industry relationships and internal capabilities to ensure customers can improve visibility and simplify security management across cloud environments to ensure the most robust protections possible.

So, if you want to ensure your business doesn’t fall victim to a cyberattack – like the 39% of businesses that suffered an attack in 2023 – feel free to call us on 0800 161 1111 or send us a message, to get the ball rolling to a better, more secure business!