Cyber Security - Caring About The People

These days its safe to assume everybody has encountered some kind of cyber security concerns, whether its your mum mistakenly clicking a link she thought was from her bank, or being notified that you apparently tried to access your email account from a location in on the other side of the world, when in reality you’re sat on your sofa watching TV. In this always online, digital age, this is an inevitability for most people. However, even with all the cyber security training and information accessible now, the nefarious individuals who run these kinds of operations are always finding ways to get into your private accounts.

It can happen to anyone from the elderly relative who avoids online activities where they can, to the tech-savvy software enthusiast with the daily social media updates. These insidious activities run the gamut across services too; banking, email, social media, streaming services, if you have something people want, there’s some criminal across the world who wants to take it from you or use it to their advantage.

Cyber Security – My experience

Indeed, I myself even as a software professional who tries to stay on top of my cyber security and avoid suspicious sites and delete phishing emails, recently had one of my accounts in a popular social media app hacked. I don’t know how the hacker did it, but I ended up with this person pretending to be me and posting about a ‘successful business deal that earned me thousands’ and offering all my followers the chance to join them in this venture. Now thankfully all my friends and family know me well enough not to fall for such a thing, however regardless of that, for me personally the damage was done.

I’m aware things could have been a lot worse, upon this discovery I updated the security in all my email and banking accounts and confirmed the hack appears to have been isolated to this one social media account. However even with this reassurance, the niggling anxiety remained present: What if they do have access to my other account but just haven’t done anything suspicious yet? What if they managed to get in because one of my devices is compromised? What obscure accounts of mine might have a similar password to that of this social media account? Besides, even when allaying such concerns, the fact remained someone was in my personal account, able to view my media and messages with my loved ones. It is a violating feeling, an eerie feeling not dissimilar to that of being burgled for those of us unfortunate enough to have experienced that also.

Where did all the care go?

Now with such discomfort and fear all too common for potential victims, one would think a billion-dollar social media company where the users’ interaction IS the service being provided would have teams on hand to help in such situations and reassure their users that they will help, and perhaps they do, but communication from this monolith of a company was all but non-existent. There was no friendly customer service number available anywhere, no live chat available, no email to contact, indeed no consistent means of contact at all.

I was able to use their automated identity verification to wrestle some control of my account back but not entirely. Even when raising the hacking incident as an issue with them through the app, I am yet to receive any confirmation that this is being investigated, whether they are aware of the issue or indeed whether they received my reported problem at all.

So even as I try to move on and reassure myself that this hacker has gone away, still that niggling feeling persists. Without any form of reassurance from the company themselves, how can I be certain this incident is fully resolved?

Delivered by people who care, to people that care

With this incident fresh in my mind, I take solace in working for a company so committed to their people and who actually care, not just about their own personnel but indeed for the clients we work with. The care we have for what we do is such a cornerstone of what Roq does that it feeds in to our four core values of Straight Talking, Passionate, Excellence and Commitment – all of which could be applied quite directly to my previous experience, to alleviate several of my worries.

My concerns with this social media incident could have been fully settled by speaking to a real person and knowing my issue was in good hands, and yet this seemingly simple service was not provided. As an entirely on-shore company, Roq believe that being there when needed is a fundamental service, and caring about what we do is crucial to that.

In my ten years with Roq I’ve seen the company grow exponentially and yet we still provide the same personal touch to our array of clients than we did when we only had one or two. Though Roq do not provide specific security services, we expect the same level of care and reassurance from the security partners that we work with to ensure any concerns can be tended to with the attention they deserve.

Top tips from a hacking victim

Speaking as someone who has now doubled down on my cyber security even more so than before, allow me to pass on some top-tips to ensure you don’t go through the same experience I did:

• Where possible use two-factor or multi-factor authentication to protect your accounts by providing extra layers of security around your logins

• Avoid password repetition or use a reliable password manager tool to generate your passwords and keep them safely sealed away

• Always check the email address when receiving emails purporting to be from your service providers; even if the name looks correct, the email address itself will reveal whether the email is from who it says it is.

If you’d like to discuss any of the topics in this article further or to learn more about how Roq can help you apply quality to your organisation, head to our website or contact a member of our team – ask@roq.co.uk