Fraud is so common now – here we look at the main categories, and what you can do to help keep your systems safe and protect from fraud.

Fraud is becoming more widespread, with an estimated 3.6 million fraud cases in 2018 – yet only 276,000 cases were reported to the police.  The estimates show a 12 % increase year on year.

There are 4 main categories for fraud:

• Online shopping, and online auction fraud was the most reported category
• Advance fee fraud is where you are asked to pay upfront and never receive what you’ve paid for
• Computer fixing fraud is most common in Norfolk, nearly double the national average.  What does this say about Norfolk people!
• Cheque, plastic card and online bank fraud is the fourth most popular category.

Increasingly popular is identity fraud, rising fastest for victims who are over 60 and under 21.  The two most likely sources of information to enable a fraudster to use your identity are the internet, and the individual themselves. 

Latest scams that are reported in large numbers include:

• Spoof HMRC phone calls, threatening prosecution because of apparently unpaid tax.  Where there is any unpaid tax, HMRC will initially make contact by letter.
• Talk Talk refunds, with a link to a malicious website
• TV Licensing scam, asking for you to update your bank records to avoid prosecution.  Over 900 cases have been reported with losses to individuals totalling £830,000.
• BT scam offering enhanced security, where you are asked to let a technician log into your computer, which they then take control of, and ask you to log into your bank account.

How to protect from fraud

As more services are online, ensuring your computer is secure is ever more critical.  The police Action Fraud website contains useful information on how to protect yourselves, including the free cybercrime protection service Quad9 and DMARC. 

Quad9 is a free security solution which acts to protect your system against the most common cyber threats, and also improving your system performance and enhancing your privacy.  DMARC is designed to protect your business from email fraud.

The Global Cyber Alliance has developed a CyberSecurity Toolkit specifically designed for small and medium sized businesses.  It offers actionable guidance and tools with clear directions to protect your business from cyber attacks.  If your business isn’t protected – it’s time to act now.

What was your careers advice like at school?  Here we look at the future of work, and what it means for businesses and workers.  Are traditional routes through education the way to go? Are we looking at the need for skills – or degrees?

Back in the 1970s, 5% of the population went to university.  Now it’s more like 50% who gain a degree – but also manage to acquire a significant amount of debt alongside it.  In a fast changing work environment, the question needs asking:  how can degrees give the impression of a lifelong stamp of professional competency whilst rapid technological developments change the way people work anyway?

No-one now expects to have a job for life, and many people are actively rejecting the notion of working for someone else.  More flexible working patterns, increasing numbers of freelancers, and more self-employed, with people often balancing more than one job – all these factors point to the need for workers to be very flexible about how they work. 

Getting a degree now may actually be restricting opportunities later.  Technological advances mean that new jobs and specialties will emerge.  The World Economic Forum found that 65% of children entering primary school will end up in jobs that don’t actually exist at present. 

There is a strong trend which indicates that the future of work may not be about degrees – but rather, it will focus on skills.  Education won’t end with a graduation, but re-skilling throughout one’s working life will become essential if workers want to be relevant. 

Employers can reap the benefits of this flexibility, but will also need to recognise the importance of allowing workers to develop skills within their employment.  We’re looking here at not just upskilling, but re-skilling as technology progresses and disruption spreads. 

Will your business be able to adapt to this fast-changing workplace environment – or be left behind? 

How does a three day weekend sound?  Would you take Friday or Monday off?  Or how about a four day weekend?  Richard Branson thinks a three day working week is a good idea – read on to find out why…

Many of us benefit from flexible working arrangements, which helps us achieve a better work/life balance.  Richard Branson’s proposals push this a step further though, as he claims that new technology should enable us to work fewer hours and be equally, if not more, effective. 

He puts this into practice with the Virgin staff he employs, where they are offered unlimited leave and a work from hone option.  His argument is simple: “it’s easier to attract top talent when you are open and flexible.  It’s not effective or productive to force them to behave in a conventional way”, he argued in a blog.

It is advances in technology which is driving this transition.  Innovation should make it possible to do more work in less time, freeing up employees to have more personal time.  Branson has always advocated for more fun, but increased time off would also enable families to spend more time together.  It may also take pressure off parents who often have to choose between pursuing their career or devoting more time to their family – to the cost of their work future.

He argues that flexible working has to be built into people’s jobs, rather than bolted on – just giving someone a laptop so they can work from home won’t achieve the goals for employee and employer.

What is not disputed is that happy workers make better workers, with a high degree of job satisfaction being reflected in higher productivity.  There is also the option for reduced costs, for example where staff work from home instead of in an office. 

There is no doubt that the pattern of working will change in the future as increased automation alters traditional work roles.  But is a three day working week a step too far, too fast?  It clearly won’t work in some sectors, but might just be a way forward in some.  After all, Fridays and Mondays off does sound very tempting…

Who doesn’t enjoy eating out?  But who would want to be a restauranteur these days?  In the week that Jamie Oliver’s chain of restaurants, the Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group goes bust, we ask ‘is the restaurant sector in crisis’, and why this is the case…

Over the past year or so, several big-name brands have entered rescue schemes – including Prezzo, Carluccios and Gourmet Burger Kitchen.  The restaurant trade is suffering – 37 of Britain’s top 100 restaurants are loss-making.  Why is this?  As always, there are a number of contributing factors:

• Rents on property have shot up, particularly since 2015 
• Business rates have gone up
• Other costs are increasing – such as food, utility and wage costs

The demand side has been hit too, with weak consumer confidence reducing spending, as well as an increasing interest in more imaginative and diverse foods. 

With a local presence in Cambridge and Norwich, many of us will have eaten at one of Jamie’s restaurants, so why did the business fail? Experts have identified 5 things that went wrong with Jamie’s chain:

• It proved difficult to translate his personality into a chain of restaurants – personal branding isn’t enough to guarantee success
• The food offering wasn’t interesting enough
• Customer reviews pointed to a lack of quality in the food offering
• Instead of bringing in established, experienced management, he promoted his brother-in-law who had no experience of running a chain of restaurants
• Poor timing – as the factors identified above combined to put pressure on the business.

Too often, the larger restaurant chains are too slow to adapt to changing trends, and are left behind as more imaginative independents deliver new eating and dining experiences.  The rise in popularity of vegan and vegetarian diets is one indicator of changing consumer habits. Far from this signalling the end of eating out, perhaps it’s just offering more of an opportunity for independents?

The new phrase to send a shiver of anxiety down any business owner’s back is ‘data breach’ – but what can you do to reduce the risk of it happening to you?

A data breach occurs as a result of a cyber attack.  Criminals are then able to gain unauthorised access and steal private, sensitive or confidential personal and financial data.  Usually, the crims are wanting to steal data such as names, email addresses, usernames, passwords and credit card details. 

The way that the crims get access to your systems tend to be:

• Spyware – malicious software that infects your PC or mobile device and gathers information about you, your browsing and Internet usage habits, as well as other data;
• Phishing – where people are deceived into sharing sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers; and
• Broken or misconfigured access controls which let people into parts of the system they shouldn’t have access to.

Best practice now is to be proactive about data security.  The top 3 tips are:

• Segment your data:  whilst this may not stop the crims, it will slow them down and make their lives more difficult.
• Use the Principle of Least Privilege, or PolP, where each user only has enough access to the system to do their job.  If one user account gets attacked, then anyone using that account won’t have access to the whole system.
• Use a strong cybersecurity programme which can detect threats, prevent downloads, and stop malware from getting onto your network.

If, as an individual, you think you’ve been the victim of a breach, here’s a quick check list of some things you may need to do:

• Reset passwords – you may want to consider using a password manager app
• Check your credit cards for any suspicious activity
• Think about putting a freeze on your credit limit on your cards
• Check your inbox carefully, including your spam folder for any dodgy looking phishing activity
• Use multi-factor authentication, where you need your password plus another form of ID