Following from the success of Zain Javed’s TV appearance on the BBC, he was asked to feature on BBC Radio Merseyside’s breakfast show to give our insight into how much of a problem cyber security is becoming both in business and for individuals.
Breakfast show host Tony Snell welcomed Zain to the show who explained that Certified Ethical Hackers are ‘white hat’ security experts who are trained to hack target systems to uncover vulnerabilities which can then be resolved by the business to stop the hackers from exploiting their systems with a real attack.
Zain went on to discuss how easy this is to do and can get to sensitive data very quickly using cheap and readily available downloadable tools.
Tony went on to ask what kind of cybercrimes exist, to which Zain explains that fraud, trespassing, phishing and scamming are very common cybercrimes but that we are currently seeing industrial espionage activities such as and sabotage and information warfare with other countries attempting to gain information on one another from across the globe.
Zain describes how the landscape is constantly evolving but for the SMEs they are regularly targeted for data such as credit card details and are preyed upon with the understanding that they might not have the resource in place to prevent the attacks.
Tony then asked about how cybercrime affects individuals as they are forced more and more to into banking online. Tony asks how secure is internet banking and does the weakness actually exist within the chain, for example with the individual as opposed to the system? Are people inadvertently at risk of giving away their details when they don’t realise they are doing it?
Zain explains that the main risk to individuals is being duped into giving out information via social engineering tactics. Whilst some of the services we offer such as penetration testing will remediate the external risk, the threat of human error remains and the attempts to manipulate people for information is becoming all the more sophisticated. The way to combat this is to increase vigilance and train yourself or your staff to recognise these issues to prevent falling for a scam.
Tony asked Zain about his experience as a ‘white hat’ hacker, and that he must be aware of what the real hackers are up to so that we can stay a step ahead, to which Zain replied that was absolutely the case. Zain explained how he was trained to think in the same way and to be aware of the new exploits, scripts and tools. Zain recommended the Cyber Advisory Service and the National Crime Agency’s Cyber Crime Unit as go-to places for advice and guidance on how to protect against cybercrime.
Tony then rounded up with the very befitting statement ‘treat your PC like you treat your wallet – make sure nobody gets hold of it’.
