Cyber security experts who tackled attack on city's university give top tips to stay safe from online crime

The cyber security company CrowdStrike, who got the University of Sunderland's IT system back up and running after it was hacked by online attackers, have been speaking to the Echo about how people and businesses can avoid online infiltration from criminal gangs.

Speaking about the rise in online crime, the company's cyber-security expert, Zeki Turedi, said: "Cyber crime and people infiltrating individuals or businesses online accounts, profiles or systems has exploded massively and the potential impact is enormous.

"The most common motive for cyber-crime is financial gain."

The man who was left to deal with the immediate aftermath of the cyber-attack, which took place in October 2021, was the University of Sunderland's Director of Technical Services, David Conway.

David said: "These attacks aren't generally from individuals sat in their bedrooms, but from organised gangs and businesses which have their own different departments.

"They will even recruit clients who pay for a cyber-attack. It can be a very lucrative business."

Zeki added: "Any business or organisation with an online platform is potentially a perfect victim."

With almost every daily task now being linked to an online account, the potential for personal information and finance to be accessed and even stolen is massive.

To help people stay safe online, Zeki and David have given their top six tips for people and businesses to be cyber-secure.

Top six cyber-security tips

1. Ensure any online platforms have multi identification access and not simply an online login and password. This could be an additional authentication app on a phone or a confirmation text message.
2. Password manager systems can help people to create more complex passwords which are less repeated and easy to remember.
3. Don't open attachments or links in any suspicious emails as this is often how infiltrators can get initial access.
4. Question everything you are being sent and why they might be asking for personal information. This also applies to anyone you don't recognise who may call and claim to be a fellow employee.
5. Any business should make sure they are adequately prepared for a potential attack, both in terms of online security and monitoring of use of online platforms. Zeki said: "It's much more cost effective to have measures in place to prevent an attack than trying to deal with the aftermath."
6. Make sure you have a plan in place to access support in the event of a cyber attack and act as quickly as possible.

Any organisation wanting to access support for their cyber-security can contact CrowdStrike via their website.