This week, the BBC reported the awful news that a weak password allowed hackers to destroy a 158-year-old company in Northamptonshire, resulting in 700 employees losing their jobs.
This company was not a Lucid Systems client, but it does remind us of the need to continually educate more people in Suffolk about the importance of password security.
We know it’s something we talk about all the time.
You might get sick of hearing us talk about password protection, and we’re sure you get frustrated by automated settings that force you to change your password every month.
But this story is a clear example of the ultimate worst-case scenario.
There are now 700 people without a job, all because stringent password settings were not in place.
Book your free password check
We don’t want what happened to this company to happen to you.
You need to have basic password protections in place.
This includes
- Strong password criteria (mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, special characters)
- Use a password manager so your passwords are kept safe and secure
- Automated settings to change your password every month
- Multi-factor authentication to alert you to potential login attempts
- Reduced user access, limiting how far someone could get into your system before detection
If you’ve any doubts whatsoever about how strong your password settings are, please get in touch. We can do a quick sanity check to ensure your settings are strong and secure.
It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
All you’ve got to do is book a password review with our cybersecurity expert, Karl Wilkinson!
Password errors come from human mistakes.
This story also reminds us of the importance of educating our employees so that every individual knows the role they play in keeping businesses in Ipswich safe and secure.
As local cybersecurity experts, we recognise that preventing cybercrime isn’t just about technical defences. It’s also about investing in employee education and training.
This involves
- Regular awareness training so your employees know how to set up a strong password.
- Education so that an employee knows how to spot the signs of a phishing scam
- Confidence that they know who to report an issue to and what steps they need to take if they think they’ve been hacked, and time is critical.
- Phishing scam simulations, so you can benchmark your progress when it comes to employee awareness.
You can’t leave it at the bottom of your to-do list. You must check your password settings.
Did you know that in the last 12 months (01 July 2024-30 June 2025), 273 reports of cybercrime* were reported to Action Fraud across the East of England by organisations like you.
This has led to reported losses exceeding £20,000.
(*data source: NFIB Fraud and Cyber Crime Dashboard)
Don’t let your business become another statistic.
Now is the time for you to urgently review your password settings to make sure that there are no weak passwords in your system.
This isn’t something you can put at the bottom of your to-do list.
It’s an urgent priority that will only take a couple of minutes, but it could be the lifeline of your business.
If you’re not sure how to do it or what to look for, then talk to us.
We would much rather check, double-check, and even triple-check your password settings so that everything is set up correctly and your business is protected.
