March Business Spotlight: Shift Key Cyber
Shift Key Cyber is a cyber security consultancy focusing on governance, risk and compliance. There are two Co-founders Sarah Knowles and Dawn O’Connor. Both are active within communities and work to improve the standards within the industry. They also both mentor newcomers into the cyber security industry.
Some background about Shift Key Cyber from our founders
After many years working in IT, risk and information security, we started Shift Key Cyber because we wanted to work with organisations of any size or sector to offer quality, no nonsense, and honest security solutions.
We work with businesses to identify security risks, understand what they are trying to protect and why. This allows us to offer a bespoke, affordable approach to improve their cyber resilience and reduce their exposure to those cyber security risks. After working with many organisations, we understand challenges such as lack of budget or in-house security knowledge. We work to address these challenges and provide advice that is practical and relevant to ensure security recommendations fit each business we work with and their requirements.
We are an Assured Service Provider for the National Cyber Security Centre for Cyber Essentials as well as a Certification Body for the scheme. Our customers are all at various stages of their security journey and come from different sectors which all have their own specific requirements. The one thing our customers have in common is they want to be better and understand how they can integrate security into their business.
Our goal is to promote awareness and help businesses understand that cyber security is a journey of continual improvement which incorporates people, process and technology. We believe cyber security does not need to be complex, and we want to help business owners take action by implementing steps to help protect their business data and that of their customers.
Here are 5 steps you can take today
- Use multifactor authentication – This is a method that requires the user to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a resource.
- Protection from malware – Install and turn on antivirus software. Switch on your firewall which is included in most operating systems.
- Apply updates/patches – Ensure that your operating systems and applications are kept up to date with the latest security updates.
- Back up your data – Back your data up to the cloud for example to keep your data safe and accessible from a separate location.
- Third party suppliers – Ensure you are aware of who is supplying goods and services to your business, and whether they have access to your data or that of your customers.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss how we can help you.