Tech 360 Newsletter - Issue No.3 - August 2021

TECH 360

ISSUE 03 | SUMMER/AUTUMN | 2021

A ROUND UP OF NEWS AND INSIGHTS IN THE WORLD OF CIRCULAR IT

HOT TOPIC: CYBER SECURITY - COULD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BE THE ANSWER OR THE ENEMY?

READ MORE

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR E-WASTE WITH OUR MULTI AWARD WINNING IT RECYCLING APP – READ MORE.

Our Stone Collection 2021 catalogues are here and new for this year You can now download a version that is specially crafted for your sector.

READ MORE

IF THERE’S AN EVENT TO ATTEND IN PERSON THIS IS IT. IT FUTURES FORUM 2021.

REGISTER HERE

SMART, CLOUD-MANAGED IT SOLUTIONS TO INNOVATE AND CONNECT YOUR SCHOOL. READ MORE

DOWNLOAD HERE

WELCOME TO TECH 360 Welcome to our new tech industry newsletter, giving you a round up of what's happening across the industry, in the world of circular IT. In each issue, we'll be rounding up

key insights, thought pieces and valuable resources to help you stay informed and get more out of your technology.

WWW.STONEGROUP.CO.UK | 08448 221 122 | MARKETING@STONEGROUP.CO.UK

HOT TOPIC

CYBER SECURITY: COULD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BE THE ANSWER OR THE ENEMY? 2021 Government Cyber Security Statistics

We are all aware of the risks that come if your cyber security systems are not up to scratch, but could Artificial Intelligence be the answer or the enemy?

According to the Governments Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2021, four in ten organisations and a quarter of charities report having cyber security breaches or attacks in the past 12 months.

THE TRUE COST OF A DATA BREACH Personal data, confidential files and much more can be compromised with a security breach and that can cost your organisation.

The average cost of a security breach for a medium to large organisation is £13,400. A security breach not only costs the organisation money, one in five report losing money, data or other assets.

As time goes by, organisations are realising that cyber security is essential and the report suggests that the number of cyberattacks and the severity of those attacks have shifted because more organisations have improved their cyber security measures; but is it enough?

This shift could potentially be linked to the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations in 2018 as organisations were forced to ensure they were storing data securely, as well as several trends towards the use of cloud storage and backups.

It is no surprise that 77% of organisations say that cyber security is a huge priority, particularly when an attack or breach could cost an organisation thousands of pounds and potentially even some of their client base.

With cyber-attacks evolving at such a fast pace and some of them becoming so complex, it can be difficult to spot and monitor activity to identify potential attacks on our own. It has been suggested that the introduction of AI will be paramount in building automated security systems. This includes the use and understanding of natural language, face detection and automatic threat detection.

With the ever-evolving techniques used to cause a security breach whether through phishing, trojan horses, spyware or many other forms, cyber security must move at an incredibly fast pace to prevent as many cyber-attacks as possible. It is not something many think about but, it is something that is vital to ensuring a safe space for the world of technology and its’ users, so that we can continue to progress at the rate we are.

HOW IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE GOING TO HELP TO PREVENT THESE CYBERATTACKS?

By introducing the use of AI enabled threat detection systems, organisations will be able to predict new attacks and notify the relevant admins of potential data breaches, without relying on a person or team monitoring slight changes in patterns.

‘Artificial Intelligence techniques can be used to learn how to remove noise or unwanted data and to enable security experts to understand the cyber environment to detect abnormal activity.’

Essentially, by utilising artificial intelligence we can improve our cyber security as the AI can analyse larger amounts of data in a shorter space of time. This means that any slight changes in patterns will raise an alert WWW.STONEGROUP.CO.UK | 08448 221 122 | MARKETING@STONEGROUP.CO.UK

HOT TOPIC and will notify a team member of a potential attack and therefore prevent more attacks from happening. Using AI more effectively and more often will allow for the development of existing systems and software in an appropriate manner to be used to reduce the number of cyber-attacks further.

are in place, if someone or an organisation wants in, they may find a way around it at some point.

So far there have been several success stories from using Artificial Intelligence based security systems; they are providing effective security standards and helping to develop better prevention and recovery strategies.

Darktrace’s cyber security company claims that its automatic machine learning technology has identified 63,500 previously unknown threats on more than 5,000 networks. This includes zero-day exploits, internal threats and subtle or hidden attacks.

For many, AI may be a longer-term answer to our cyber security challenges, but in the here and now, organisations can take sufficient steps to ensure their safe against malicious attacks. By implementing and updating your cyber security regularly you will help to deter any potential threats against your organisation, and it doesn’t have to be a daunting challenge.

IS AI THE ANSWER TO OUR CYBER SECURITY PRAYERS? The real beauty of artificial intelligence is the amount of data it can analyse which means that it could help to pick up and identify unusual traffic in the network, including new potential threats that evolve within the industry. To the human eye many would miss those minute and subtle changes that could indicate a threat but software that automatically sifts through data can highlight the issue and raise it to the necessary team member.

AI – ANSWER OR ENEMY?

At Stone we can help guide you through all the necessary steps you need to take to protect your organisation.

We are also offering a free 90-day trial of our Vulnerability Assessment-as-a-Service, to help you understand and mitigate any potential threats.

So, in the meantime you have peace of mind and you can be protected today.

Big fish or little fish, we all need Cyber security.

90 day

free tria

l

Nellcote has joined forces with Stone Computers to fight cybercrime. Speak to your Stone Account Manager and find out how we can help.

Of course, there is the other side of the story where unfortunately AI is being used against us to develop smart malware and other attacks that will bypass the latest security protocols.

With a heavy focus on AI supported solutions there is a worry that this could lead to a false sense of security and allow for AI supported attacks to break through the barrier.

With cybersecurity, no matter what systems

•

CREST accredited Penetration Testing Services

•

Vulnerability Assessment Services (regular or ad-hoc)

• • •

Awareness Training & “Secure Culture” Development Cyber Essentials Accreditation Support Virtual Security Team Services

•

Incident Response Support

Our experts will help you get your Cyber Security sorted.

nellcote.co.uk

WWW.STONEGROUP.CO.UK | 08448 221 122 | MARKETING@STONEGROUP.CO.UK

HOT TOPIC

DEVICE AND SOFTWARE SOLUTION FOR ASHMOLE ACADEMY ENABLING EDUCATION EVERYWHERE– CASE STUDY.

CISCO HELP NORTHAMPTON GENERAL HOSPITAL NHS TRUST WITH A FUTUREPROOF WIFI SOLUTION – CASE STUDY

VIRTUALISATION SUPPORT SERVICES HELP NEMAT IMPLEMENT FUTURE-PROOF SERVER SOLUTION – CASE STUDY

Ashmole Academy required a full IT refresh as they has an ageing IT infrastructure and needed to upgrade to Windows 10. Stone provided 412 devices and software to Ashmole to enable education everywhere.

NHS Trust enhances experiences with future-proof Cisco project after their WiFi solution was out of vendor support. They now have reliable WiFi onsite with no outages.

Multi Academy Trust consider Stone Support Services another member of the team after we help refresh their server infrastructure with the Equinox, Stone’s Hyper-converged virtualisations platform.

READ MORE >

READ MORE >

READ MORE >

The power is in your hands

Take control of your e-waste with the 360 App Download our award winning Stone 360 app and be part of a game-changing revolution in IT recycling.

DOWNLOAD TODAY

WWW.STONEGROUP.CO.UK | 08448 221 122 | MARKETING@STONEGROUP.CO.UK