SES Blog

Worrying figures release recently in the fourth annual Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report state that one in six businesses are still opting to pay ransoms demanded by malicious individuals when falling victim to ransomware attacks.

Recently we have seen a shift in the way organisations integrate critical applications into their business. We are seeing organisations gravitate towards applications delivered through a hosting partner (e.g. AWS, Azure or Google Cloud Platform etc.)

In light of the considerable rise in security breaches we have witnessed over the last 12 months, security has become a major concern amongst businesses.

The vast majority of businesses are heavily reliant on third party software owners to develop and maintain their business critical applications.

SES are delighted to announce that we have partnered with insurance provider Markel to provide as standard, what continues to be the highest liability indemnity insurance available to any UK based Software Escrow vendor.

SES has achieved continued certification during its annual surveillance audit for ISO: 9001 and ISO: 27001. The scope of the certifications covers the provision of Software Escrow Agreements, Cyber Security and Data services, inclusive of Data Storage and Validation across all business sectors.

Barely a week goes by without news of another cyber incident making the headlines and the stakes have never been greater for businesses. Data theft has become commonplace, the scale of ransomware demands has risen steeply and the environment businesses are operating in has become more hostile than ever.

We are overwhelmed by stories of organisations falling victim to cyber threats but a recent report released by ForgeRock, the ForgeRock Consumer Identity Breach Report puts the overall scale of the situation into perspective, summarising that 5 billion records were exposed by breaches in 2019 alone.

Software Escrow is essential to protect your business applications, especially those which are bespoke, highly customised, business critical or revenue generating as the time and financial cost of sourcing suitable alternatives in the event your supplier is unable to support them can be astronomical. 

Standardised, off the shelf applications no longer fulfill the requirements of today's highly dynamic organisations. Although these applications are good as a starting point, a foundation to build on, they often don’t fulfil the true needs of their users.

Recently we published an article summarising some of the findings from Proofpoint’s 2020 “State of the Phish” report. That article focused on the rise in phishing threats over the last 12 months. However, this week we will be focusing on another concerning finding from the report – a lack of understanding when it comes to common phishing and ransomware threats.

When setting up an Escrow agreement to protect hosted applications, ensuring you can retain access to the most current version of your application data should be your number one priority.