How would a cyber attack affect your customers?

Without a doubt a cyber attack would be a massive hit to your business, the longer the downtime the more you can see a potential profit loss. Not being able to serve customers a product or service for a few days wouldn’t be a huge disruption, right? Salford City Council’s housing register found itself having to leave 5,200 people without access to its services, leaving people looking for better accommodation or even just a way out of homelessness unable to do anything but wait.

The downtime has been going on for the entirety of August, usually, a cyber attack wouldn’t be this big of a hindrance to a company, with people generally able to recover in as little as a few days. But while certain cyber attacks may only affect the business that’s been targeted, this one has had a knock-on effect that’s left vulnerable people without the help they need, would you want to be responsible for that? The phishing scam also hit housing registers in Manchester and Bolton, warning customers to be wary of suspicious activity in their bank accounts.

Take a look at this article for a more in-depth review of what happened and how affected so many people – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjygveyv80o

While the company has announced the problem has been identified and addressed, is a month an acceptable amount of downtime, even more so when it prevents multiple people from being able to find life-changing accommodation? While every measure should be put into place to ensure staff do not fall for phishing scams, sometimes mistakes happen, and something slips through the net. It shouldn’t take an attack like this to make you realise you should have a backup solution in place, you should be readily prepared should a mistake like this happens.

While it’s not known what type of backup solution Salford City Council had in place, a third-party backup solution with someone like us at Backup Systems would’ve helped them back on their feet a lot quicker. A third-party backup that isn’t associated with the main system and thus unaffected by phishing scams or ransomware or any other potential threat, would’ve been a  safe and secure way to ensure that a month-long downtime wouldn’t have happened, as they would’ve been able to restore in no time.

Don’t be the reason for company downtime, or the source of anger for many customers, ensure you’re protected with a third-party backup. We offer a variety of backup solutions, and we have no doubt one of them will be the appropriate solution for your needs. Take a look at our managed services found here – https://www.backup-systems.co.uk/managed-data-backup/ once you’ve found one you like, get in touch with us by emailing us at info@backupsystems.co.uk or call us at 0845 671 0290 where we can arrange a free demo for you.

We want to make sure you have the right setup for your systems, so rather than invest in a pointless service, have an in-depth look at our services on us.

We are proud to have many clients who are happily backing up their systems with us, take a look at what they have to say about Backup Systems here – https://www.reviews.co.uk/company-reviews/store/back-up-systems-ltd

Photo by Daniel Lawrence & Ben Kolde