Fax machines have moved from office essential to dust collector in the space of 15 years. The development of the internet and printers outdated the fax machine quicker than most expected. Despite this, as printers are often all-in-one fax machines can still be found in the majority of offices and whilst forgotten about they can pose a big security risk.

Ticketmaster have become one of the first companies to have a major data breach since the arrival of GDPR. Data including payment details, addresses, names and phone numbers of around 40,000 users have all been affected by the breach. Ticketmaster say the breach was first detected on the 23rd June and affected 5% of its customers.

TSB customers have reported a significant increase in phishing attacks connected to the recent TSB IT incident. A total of 176 complaints have been made since April 30 as hackers seize the opportunity to try and attack the vulnerable bank's customers. Nearly four weeks on from the banking meltdown the issue has not been averted and it has become an easy payday for hackers and scammers. With people’s apps and online banking being down this has allowed hackers to make off with thousands of pounds worth of savings from peoples accounts due to similar looking emails requesting personal account information, something a bank would never do over email.

The British government have promised to spend £150m on its cyber defences against the “growing threat” of cyber-attacks. This follows on from WannaCry which struck last year and affected nearly 600 GP practices and 80 trusts.

A popular fitness and nutrition app ‘MyFitnessPal’ has suffered the largest data breach of 2018 so far affecting 150 million accounts. Hackers got away with usernames, email addresses and hashed passwords.

Data protection and privacy is expected across the internet nowadays. Data privacy concerns have been up in the air as multiple stories emerge concerning what companies do with people’s data and who they share this with.

Have you entered The Internet of Things (IoT) yet?

2017 has been a big year concerning cyber security, positively and negatively. The rise of Ransomware into the mainstream news with global attacks on businesses and record numbers of data breaches such as Yahoo having one billion accounts accessed by hackers. IT security is one of the fastest moving industries, and it's vital that every business tries to keep up and stay protected.

Your business is only as secure as how you store and manage your passwords. Often overlooked, passwords are the first line of defence to protecting your business from anyone and a strong password can often make the difference. However sometimes no matter how strong a password is they still fall into the wrong hands. How passwords are stored plays a vital role in the safety of your business and ensuring that only authorised users can access approved applications.

1.4 Billion hacked and leaked passwords have been collated in a single file and are currently sitting on the dark web. Security firm 4iQ who discovered the files say that rather than this being a new breach it is a collection of several previous breaches. None of the passwords are encrypted and all the data has been put into a searchable, interactive database.