BULLETIN 01732 759725 4 Cyber extortion jumps 39% in a year There was a 39% rise in the number of reports made by victims of cyber extortion to Action Fraud in 2022, jumping from 2,300 to 3,200, according to research by international law firm RPC. There has been an 8% rise in reports made by victims of email and social media hacking, up from 13,500 in 2021, to 14,600 in 2022. This type of fraud often involves hackers accessing the email account of a trusted individual, such as a lawyer, accountant or a vendor and then using emails from that account to trick the victim into sending funds to the fraudster’s bank account. Richard Breavington, Partner and Head of Cyber and Tech Insurance at RPC, says that small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and individuals are likely to form the bulk of victims in cyber extortion. www.rpc.co.uk Advice on tap Former Midshire Managing Director and PrintIT Awards judge, Julian Stafford, has launched a business advisory and mentoring service. Stafford has extensive experience within the print and IT sector, he headed up the northern division of Midshire, a major reseller for many OEMs, which prior to its acquisition by Sharp in 2017 had achieved an annual turnover of £35m. After a period leading the business while it continued to operate as an independent organisation and then overseeing the integration of Midshire into Sharp’s direct operation, in 2019 he decided to exit and begin a new chapter. Stafford says he comes to life when helping business owners to address and solve issues, and after supporting a number of local firms to achieve their business goals, he is now looking to take on new projects. Whether it’s finance, operations or HR, through to sales and marketing or even building an exit strategy and preparing for a sale, Stafford says he’s keen to lend an ear, help and support with a fresh perspective. There are no contractual obligations, he’s offering a wholly flexible contractual service. For more information please visit: https://julianstafford.co.uk Government engages with print and paper at No10 The IPIA participated in a joint delegation to No10 Downing Street to advocate for the print, paper and packaging industries. Its members met with a senior special advisor to the Prime Minister. The delegates participated in an industry roundtable, the aim of which was to facilitate discussion with government and set out the contribution of our industries to the economic and social progress of the UK – while highlighting the structural and strategic support that could spur new growth. The Prime Minister’s special advisor heard from participants on a range of areas where progress could be made to encourage growth in the print, paper and packaging industries, and how they in turn could assist UK economic expansion. https://ipia.org.uk Brits turn to VPNs for cyber protection New global research from cybersecurity firm NordVPN has found that more than twothirds of people in the UK (68%) are now aware of what a VPN is and over a quarter of people are now using one. Protecting privacy and avoiding security risks when browsing are the top reasons for using, representing three quarters (73%) of users, while one in four (27%) say it is to access content outside of their home country. Two in five (40%) VPN users are using free sites to access the tool, which could put them at risk of having their personal information leaked to cyber criminals or make them a target for malicious targeted ads. Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN warns: “Free VPNs don’t charge monthly or yearly fees, making them seem like an attractive option, but using one is a real roll of the dice. These need to make money so they often end up tracking and selling user data to third parties, bombarding users with ads, or employing aggressive strategies to get their free users to upgrade to a paid version.” https://nordvpn.com Cybersecurity and data sovereignty concerns Nutanix has announced the public sector findings of its fifth annual Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey, which measures enterprise progress with cloud adoption. The research reveals that public sector organisations plan to accelerate their hybrid multi-cloud deployments nearly five-fold over the next three years. Overall, public sector respondents expect to increase their general use of mixed IT infrastructure to 73%. Cybersecurity and data sovereignty – the ability to comply with national rules for data storage and control tied as the top criterion, at 13% each. The overriding driver of application movement in the past year was to improve data security. Nearly all respondents in the global public sector (98%) indicated that they had moved applications between IT infrastructures in the past 12 months, and 47% cited a desire to improve their company’s security posture or their ability to meet regulatory requirements as a reason. www.nutanix.com (L to R): Brendan Perring – IPIA, Lance Hill – Eight Days a Week Print Solutions, Charles Rogers – IPIA, Anthony Rowell – Tradeprint, Jane Rixon – HP, Marine Kerivel-Brown – Duplo International, Sarah KilcoyneGuilliam – Kingsbury Press/Bluetree Group, Simon Cooper – Solopress, and Mike Hughes – Latcham
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