Cyber security in sport isn’t talked about much, but The Cyber Threat to Sports Organisations report from the National Cyber Security Centre has put the focus on cyber security in the UK sports industry.
Research found the rate of successful cyber attacks is far higher than other UK sectors:
- 70% of sports organisations have experienced a cyber incident or breach
- 30% of organisations recorded over 5 incidents in the last 12 months
Financial motive is the driving factor behind attacks to the sports sector, with hackers finding many businesses have poor implementation and technical controls.
With fraudsters targeting the UK sports sector organisations must now prioritise cyber security.
Read on for some straightforward tips:
Email security
Implement advanced email security. We use Barracuda.
Multi factor authentication
With the rise of email compromise in sport, multi factor authentication is another important layer of defence.
Put risk on the agenda
We have said this time and time again; IT and cyber security is a boardroom topic. Make time to cover these issues!
Staff training
Your staff are part of your defence. Empower them and make sure they are trained on cyber security.
Encryption
Encryption makes using intercepted data as difficult as possible and is a key line of defence in cyber security architecture.
Patch management
21% of those surveyed do not have a patching strategy, and 25% do not back up their data. Patch management keeps your systems and software updated, and fixes vulnerabilities.
Business continuity planning
This is highly relevant due to the pandemic. Prepare your business and develop plans to handle incidents.
You can also consider Cyber Essentials certification
Cyber security is a lot to manage and when done poorly it’s not effective. You can speak to us at Clear Thinking and we’ll be happy to guide you through important measures to keep your sports organisation safe. We have spent time researching and testing solutions that quite simply work! This means using the most up to date and advanced products on the market and our own expertise. They work for our clients in financial services, insurance, and pharmaceutical and they work in sport too.
