Highland Council Using Cyber Scotland Week To Stress Importance Of Business Continuity

28th February 2022

Highland Council is using Cyber Scotland Week (28 Feb - 6 Mar 2022) to remind businesses across the region about the importance of business continuity in the face of new and emerging threats from cyber criminals.

Business continuity planning can give your business the best chance of coping should the worst happen.

IT system failures caused by a cyber-related incident could make it very difficult or even impossible to carry out the normal day-to-day activities of any business.

There is a potential to lose vital customers or even go out of business altogether without considering business continuity planning. It is therefore crucial to identify risks, make preparations for an emergency and regularly test how your business would cope in an emergency.

Part of the planning process may involve identifying potential crises that may affect your business, work out how you would minimise the risk of these crises occurring in the first place and create a business continuity plan for how you will react. It is also important to test these plans on a regular basis.

For example, you should have a back-up IT/information system in place, so you have copies of key data in the event of a system failure or cyber-attack.

Installing anti-virus software, backing up data and ensuring the right maintenance agreements are in place can all help protect your IT systems. You might also consider paying an IT company to regularly back up your data offsite on a secure server.

Printing out copies of your customer database can be a good way of ensuring you can still contact customers if your IT system fails.

Your business's risk assessment and mitigation measures should enable you to cope with a security breach or incident and return to normality quickly. This is particularly important for smaller businesses that may not have the resources to withstand even a few days without trading.

The business continuity pages on the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure outline a number of issues to consider and steps that can be taken to enable your organisation to return to ‘business as usual' in the quickest possible time after an incident.
See https://www.cpni.gov.uk/content/business-continuity

Every business relies on the confidentiality, integrity and availability of its data. The essential services provided by businesses rely on the integrity of cyberspace and the infrastructure, systems and data that underpin them. However cyber-related threats are one of the most significant risks to businesses in the UK, which is why cyber security is increasingly important to ensure the best protection.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is the UK's technical authority for cyber security, bringing together capabilities developed by CPNI, CESG, CERT-UK and the Centre for Cyber Assessment. The NCSC helps to make the UK the safest place to live and work online - from individual citizens to the largest and most critical organisations.

The latest cyber security advice and guidance, including threat advice, is available on the NCSC website. The guidance available to businesses on the NCSC website and focuses on Incident Management, how to effectively detect, respond to and resolve cyber incidents. See https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/incident-management

The NCSC glossary for Individuals, families and small businesses can be downloaded from the NCSC website.

NCSC also provides a free Exercise In A Box which is available online for businesses to help them discover out how resilient they are to cyber-attacks and practice their response in a safe environment.
See https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/exercise-in-a-box

The Scottish Business Resilience Centre also has a free Exercise in a Box. See https://www.sbrcentre.co.uk/prevent-protect/cyber-services/exercise-in-a-box

NCSC also has advice on enhanced cyber security in light of international events. Check out the information on how to bolster defences. See https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/organisations-urged-to-bolster-defences

During Cyber Scotland Week a host of events are taking place to help businesses and individuals understand the threats from cybercrime. Check out their website. See https://events.cyberscotlandweek.com/events/

Ready Scotland also has a Business Emergency Resilience Group 10 Minute Plan to help prepare your business. See https://ready.scot/business-emergency-resilience-plan

Highland Council also has information to support businesses on its Support for Business pages. See https://www.highland.gov.uk/info/20016/coronavirus/904/support_for_business