June 2022 Newsletter

DON’T PANIC! (When you have a Cyber Attack). Come to our:
Incident Response Planning Workshop
July 15th 9am—12pm, Village Hotel, Eastleigh, SO53 3YJ

If you can answer ‘Yes!’ to ALL of the above then you don’t need to read any further.

But if you have more than one ‘No!’ then do read on……

IBM reckon that the average time between the initial compromise and the breach is 280 days. And with that sort of head start, when they hit, you need to make sure you are ready!

Of course you must try to identify the compromise as quickly as possible, but because hackers are smart they can often go undetected for long periods of time. Knowing what to do when a breach happens will greatly reduce the time to contain it (and the impact on your business)

What can you do about it?

Bring a couple of key colleagues in your business or organisation to our Incident Response Plan (IRP) Workshop on July 15th, at the Village Hotel, Eastleigh, run by Vermont and RightCue (our Security Consultants).

You’ll walk away with at least one IRP for a common threat scenario to your business and also the knowledge on how to put multiple IRP’s together for your organisation.

Cost:
You know what they say ‘Free advice is not worth the paper it’s written on’. For this workshop we are charging £200 plus VAT to cover the costs of the room, refreshments and travel costs. Any surplus will be donated to Charity.

The 5 Top Reasons to have an IRP

1. Faster Mitigation
The incident response plan is a detailed checklist of actions on how to handle different types of potential security incidents. It includes measures that have to be carried out by employees, isolating affected areas, recovery systems to be put in place etc .
Doing this pre-planning will help you reduce the response time to an event. The longer you take in responding means that there is potential for more damage to your network. If cyberattacks are not quickly responded to, their potential to have a larger financial, legal and operational impact grows. Cont.

2. Being Organised
Security incidents are impossible to predict, and even if you think you are well protected, they can still catch you off-guard. And if your team aren't trained for an event they could panic and be less able to defend the network.
By having an incident response plan (IRP) it helps you to mitigate the impact of an event, remediate vulnerabilities and secures the organisation in a co-ordinated manner. It also allows you to minimise the costs of resources associated with it.

3. Improves your security
By going through the IRP process you analyse (at a high level) your current defence systems, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Then it gives you a view on the potential impact that these scenarios present and thus you have a better understanding of your security.
It will also show you what areas to focus on when it comes to improving your defences and therefore you become more resilient to attack.

4. Builds Confidence
Your clients, partners and other stakeholders will have more confidence in you if you have an effective incident response plan. It shows you care and that you are being proactive about your security.

5. Compliance
Updated regulations mean that companies have to undertake several measures, including an up to date incident response plan. For example, as part of the UK's GDPR there is a requirement for every business to have response plan for addressing any security incidents.
If you take credit card payments the PCI/DSS regulations also require you to have an IRP in the event of a security breach.
Sign up

So if this sounds like something you need to do then sign up here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/incident-response-plan-workshop-tickets-349511808227

8 Tips To Reach The Top Of Your Field
I’ve been consulting business leaders for well over 20 years now, and in that time, I’ve worked with some of the brightest minds across various industries. At ghSMART, we have helped many people reach the top of their field, and you may be wondering how we helped them. A professor taught me a tactic years ago that has helped me reach the top of my field. Now, I enjoy sharing this information with our clients.

Essentially, there are three roles in every profession – rainmakers, doers and trackers. The trackers are those who track other people’s work. They play an important role but will rarely leave a lasting impact on their field. Most people are doers, since they do the work that is provided to them by someone else. They’re also important, but they probably won’t reach the top of the field. Then there are the rainmakers. These are the people who are proactive and go above and beyond to achieve results. Rainmakers always push to reach their goals and often reach the top of their field in the process.

Just being a rainmaker is not enough to leave an impact, though. If you follow these eight tips, you’ll be well on your way toward success.

1. Go to the best schools you can while achieving the highest grades possible and establish your technical skills. You don’t necessarily have to attend the best school possible, but it does help.

2. Spend 20% of your time building relationships. Try to spend a day each week learning what concerns are affecting customers in your industry and work toward solutions.

3. Keep a list of your 50 most important relationships and rank them in order of importance.

4. Don’t do tasks or offer advice if it is outside of your area of expertise. If you don’t deliver great results, you will push your clientele away.

5. Improve your public speaking skills. On average, 95% of professionals are not confident when speaking in public, so the 5% who are confident usually shine on a regular basis.

6. Learn how to hire and delegate. You can’t do everything on your own, so you need to surround yourself with a team you can trust.

7. Price yourself high, but don’t get greedy. You know how much your work is worth and you know how much the competition charges. For desired results, clients don’t mind paying a little extra for good work.

8. Mentor others to become rainmakers. Your team will only grow stronger.

As a caring and courageous rainmaker, you will rise to the top of your field – while your peers who rest entirely on their technical skills will not.

Dr. Geoff Smart is the chairman and founder of ghSMART, a leadership consulting firm that exists to help leaders amplify their positive impact on the world. Dr. Smart and his firm have published multiple New York Times best sellers. He stays active in his community and has advised many government officials.

Airmoto
Imagine you’re driving with your family on holiday in the middle of winter. All of a sudden, the road feels much bumpier, so you pull over and get out to check your tires. To your dismay, you discover one of your tyres has gone flat. The closest petrol station is over a couple of miles away, and your spare can’t handle the adverse conditions. So, what should you do? With Airmoto, you never have to worry about this situation.
Airmoto is a rechargeable compact air pump that provides up to 120 psi. In only 10 minutes, you can inflate your car’s tires to the proper tire pressure. Airmoto can be used to pump up balls, bike tyres and even van tires. It’s practical, not very heavy and quite affordable. Airmoto is the perfect addition to any roadside assistance kit.

(and only costs £175 on amazon!!!!)

The Future Of Leadership
The pandemic completely changed the way many people view work. If there’s one thing for certain, it’s that remote work will continue once the pandemic ends. If your business has switched over to a remote or hybrid environment, you may need to reevaluate your leaders to ensure their skills align with the new work environment. Strong remote leaders possess traits that are essential for success.

In fact, if you want your business to prosper in the future, you must ensure your leaders are good communicators since they might not be working in the same location as their employees. They also need to possess collaboration skills to ensure each facet of every project is covered. Additionally, your leaders should be able to align their values with those of your staff and customers.

Empathetic and understanding leaders are the future, and you need to have a leader who will look out for their team while also taking care of any customer needs.

If you interview a candidate who possesses these great characteristics, they should be a top contender for your leadership positions.

Reasons Your Business Should Be Using A Private Cloud

Gone are the days when everything was stored on a physical hard drive. Now, most businesses and private users utilise cloud computing to store their data. It’s no secret that cloud storage is the present and future of data storage, but have you thought about using a private cloud that only allows your business and permitted users to access necessary information? There are many benefits that come with using a private cloud, such as the following:

It offers better security since nobody besides authorized users can use the storage or servers.

Your team will gain greater flexibility to continue their work without the fear of IT issues since backups are done automatically on private cloud servers.

It’s often cheaper to use a private cloud than to maintain physical servers.

Private clouds usually come with managed IT services, so there’s no need to hire an IT team to work on-site. This will save you time and money.