The UK Chamber of Shipping is the trade association and voice of the UK shipping industry. It works with Government, parliament, international organisations and others to champion and protect the industry on behalf of its members. As such, the UK Chamber is part of a network of industry influencers and has access to governments and government bodies at the highest level – not just in the UK, but internationally.
The Challenge
As with any organisation with connections to the UK Government, the UK Chamber are potentially of heightened interest to foreign threat actors - in this climate, the need for good cyber security was paramount. Having been subjected to an earlier Cryptolocker attack where hackers attempted to encrypt files with malware, the UK Chamber had worked with Stellarise to quickly recover and restore files from backup with the minimum of fuss. This led to the UK Chamber wanting to raise awareness about cyber security on an organisational level.
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I don’t think you can ever be complacent with cyber security; you just have to keep trying to be up there in terms of best practice. Everyone understands that with threats such as cryptolockers and GDPR compliance, it’s just enormously important.” Richard Tamayo, Director of Finance and Support Services, UKCOS |
Awareness Training
People are often the weakest link in cyber security and hackers attempt to exploit human error and lack of awareness in order to gain access. As such, training focused on employees is a powerful tool in identifying where any weaknesses may lie, therefore preventing further attacks. Stellarise offer security awareness training through our partner, KnowBe4. It combines awareness training with simulated scenario-based phishing attacks and so can provide visibility of where or with whom the weaknesses lie so that action can be taken. We brought this training to the UK Chamber, as Richard Tamayo explains, “Stellarise training really drilled home the importance of preventative behaviours. The fact that we were throwing scenarios at our people, through the training, was enormously important in reinforcing the behaviours that we want. Making our people aware of the issues has been a huge game-changer in terms of our cyber resilience. It’s early days but it really does seem to be paying dividends in terms of staff awareness and being able to talk about the issues.”
Cyber Essentials Certification
There was also a recognition that obtaining Cyber Essentials certification would send a positive signal to their partners. Cyber Essentials is a government sponsored scheme that helps organisations guard against the most common cyber threats and demonstrates their commitment to cyber security. “Stellarise made us aware of Cyber Essentials and it was agreed by our risk committee that it was something we wanted to get. It’s great for making you think about what you are doing as well. It sets an agenda and we are going to be upgrading to Cyber Essentials PLUS soon,” adds Richard Tamayo. After Stellarise put in place the necessary steps to gain certification, the UK Chamber achieved Cyber Essentials with independent verification from our partners Risk Crew.
The Results
After raising awareness of cyber security throughout the organisation with the training via KnowBe4 and attaining Cyber Essentials certification, the UK Chamber are now much more confident about their approach to cyber security now and in the future. “Prevention is better than cure - and we’ve proven that we can cure. There’s nothing more confidence building than having had an attack and being able to bounce back with resilience. Stellarise are very good at making sure we get all the security patches and KnowBe4 is very good at the human element and training. We thank Stellarise for making us aware about that – and we are now Cyber Essentials certified too,” says Richard.
Contact
+44 (0)20 3137 3550
