Barracuda : Why is Safer Internet Day important in 2018? (opens in new window)

Safer Internet Day has come around again, and this year the theme is 'create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you'.

Since we started out as a company, we've been teaming up with other organisations to help make the internet a safer place for all.

This includes protecting the No More Ransom site, a unique coalition of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre, Dutch Police, Kaspersky, and Intel Security with the aim to help victims of ransomware retrieve their encrypted data without having to pay the criminals.

So in the age of WannaCry and NotPeyta, ransomware-as-a-service and weaponized AI, how should you stay safe in 2018? Here are a few tips from us on how to keep even the most persistent of advanced threats out of your organisation.

1. You need to acknowledge that solutions such as Microsoft Office 365 often require third-party protection, and you need to work with an expert partner to plug those gaps.

2. One trend to monitor closely this year is the rising use of spear phishing emails. We've seen a huge increase in these type of attacks recently.

3. Cybercriminals are increasingly using widespread attacks to try and net as much income as possible in one go. For example, the WannaCry attack in May 2017 struck the NHS's system, meaning that some surgeries had to be postponed. Ensure you have the technology in place so that you don't become the next headline.

4. Of course, no system is infallible, so we'd always recommend a combination of technology and user training to ensure that your organisation stays safe. Prioritise investing in user education as a front line of defence.

5. Finally, our advice for anyone in terms of cloud security is to never treat environments differently just because they're in the cloud, and to take a layered approach to security in any location, whether that data is in the cloud or on premises.

Chris Ross is Senior Sales VP, International, Barracuda, with strategic & operational responsibility for world-wide markets. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.