Disturbing cyber attacks – an increasing threat to UK businesses

Node4 warns against security complacency despite cut-backs in general spending

The UK has been targeted with a “disturbing” number of cyber attacks on sensitive data residing on government, defence, technology and engineering firms’ computers, said the director of communications intelligence agency GCHQ. The issue is so important that on Tuesday the government will host a two-day conference on the matter, which is feared could affect the UK’s continued wellbeing, as external attacks attempt to steal British ideas and designs in an effort to gain commercial advantage or profit.

Andrew Gilbert, managing director at leading data centre and communications solutions company, Node4 said, “Cyber attacks are sadly a fact of modern business life and we will continue to see businesses targeted by malicious individuals as the Internet and IT grows in importance to the nation’s economy. Despite increasing threats, the matter of adequate business continuity is still being influenced by a reluctance to spend money in the current economic climate, as companies look to keep costs to a minimum. This could be a false economy as quite often, the after effects of a disaster on a business can be catastrophic, and in some cases even terminal. Economic conditions are already turbulent so any issue that could put the future of a business in jeopardy needs urgent attention.”

He continued, “ Cloud computing is clearly proving to be the future as far as IT strategy is concerned, and it is now more important than ever that organisations have in place the best security as possible. At Node4 we ensure we have the best security and back-up systems, both online and physical, to ensure our customers’ data is safe and our operations are totally resilient.”

Gilbert has built a successful business with a ‘data centre on your doorstep’ approach and a network of UK data centres across the country ensures customers can have access to a number of facilities that a means there is no single point of failure. It’s an approach that has led to Node4 becoming a dominant force in data centres. Additionally, Node4 ensures that it uses the highest quality equipment in all its data centres, and has fully trained staff on hand at all times to deal with any emergencies that may arise.

About Node4

Node4 is a specialist in data centre and communications solutions. Launched in 2004, the company has grown rapidly in the past seven years through its comprehensive service offering and the growth in demand for hosted IT from businesses all over the UK. Its competencies include colocation, managed hosting through dedicated servers and virtualised environments, connectivity, SIP trunking and hosted telephony. It has four state-of-the-art data centre facilities, two located in Derby and one in Leeds and one in Northampton, which offer the latest in security technology, ensuring that even the most mission-critical applications are hosted securely and protected.

The company aims to be one of the UK’s major forces for colocation services in the UK and to this end, provides the highest levels of performance and system availability to its customers throughout the UK. Node4 featured in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 in both 2010 and 2011 and won 1st place for fastest growing Midlands Technology Company in the Deloitte Fast50 and 22nd in the UK. The company also featured in prominent positions in the Deloitte Fast 500 in 2010 and 2011, which recognises fastest-growing technology companies across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Node4’s Managing Director, Andrew Gilbert, was named European Data Centre Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 and Ernst & Young North and Midlands Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011.

Node4 is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, a Cisco Premier Certified Partner and also won the prestigious

Cisco Innovation Award of the Year for the UK and Ireland.

For more information, please visit www.Node4.co.uk

For press enquiries email node4@flamepr.com or contact the Node4 press team on 0203 357 9740

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