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Are you safe from attack?

March 28, 2024 by Alistar Enser

In the light of our upcoming tech day on 24th March and the horrific events that are unfolding in Ukraine, we turn our attention this week to cyber security, and the warning by the Information Commissioner’s Office that Russian hackers could launch more cyber-attacks in the UK following the introduction of sanctions against Moscow.

According to John Edwards, the information commissioner, a new era of security has begun where, “instead of blacking out windows, people needed to maintain vigilance over their inboxes.”

Only last week, Toyota had to close all 14 of its manufacturing plants in Japan after one of its suppliers was hit by a cyber-attack. As these plants are responsible between them for 13,000 cars each day, the financial loss and impact on logistics will have been considerable. Indeed, IBM studied 537 real breaches across 17 countries and regions across 17 different industries, and found that costs increased from $3.86m in 2020 to $4.24m in 2021 – the highest in the past 17 years.

Closer to home, Axis, a global leading manufacturer of security technology was also hit by a cyber-attack recently. According to a statement by the camera manufacturer, “The attackers used multiple methods of social engineering to gain access despite our security mechanisms.” The company has since made improvements “to reduce the risk of human error”, while raising technical security mechanisms “to limit the risk of any similar future event.” It goes to show that even the most prepared of companies still carry vulnerabilities and are at risk.

To this end, are you sure that your users are being cyber secure? What training are they provided? Are the right procedures in place, and how often are they reviewed? Are you completely confident that your systems are protected properly?

If you are in the slightest bit hesitant in answering any of these questions, now is the time to act: At Reliance High Tech we are certified with ISO 270001 , which is the international standard for information security management systems (ISMS), ISO 27001 covering cybersecurity, physical security and everything in-between. If you cannot achieve this easily, then you could start with Cyber Essentials and progress to IS27001 as you develop. We would recommend that any company working in Security today should have these.

Like anything of value, certification is often tough to achieve and maintain – for example, Reliance High Tech and Reliance Protect currently have over 114 policies and procedures within our ISO 27001 certified ISMS, covering all aspects of service delivery. However, when you look after physical and life safety, we believe there are no shortcuts.

Cyber-attacks are in no way unusual. But the growing reliance on the cloud may help organisations stay more secure. Using the cloud removes the need for servers and other onsite IT infrastructure that itself requires security hardening (to prevent a ‘way in’ for cyber criminals.)

Clearly, field devices and other technology at the edge will also have vulnerabilities and so these must also be set and maintained correctly, along with any network infrastructure, firewalls, etc. Think about it though, where possible would you rather protect your own recorders and hardware infrastructure, when perhaps this is not your core skill, or do you think that a data centre and cloud provider will provide a safer environment, given that cyber security is their entire business?

These types of debates will feature at our tech day on 24th March, where among other subjects we will discuss access control as a service, the journey of access control to the cloud and video surveillance today and in the future. Speakers from Reliance High Tech and guest manufacturers will talk about how technology has evolved, how hybrid solutions are integrating worlds, how cameras are evolving for our connected world and how analytics can be undertaken efficiently in the cloud.

Numbers will be strictly limited and entrance by ticket only, so if you are interested in attending, please register your interest at info@reliancehightech.co.uk

Stay Safe.