Workers who leave computers on at night raise risk of cyber attacks, warns minister

BUSINESSES are leaving themselves open to cyber attacks because employees are failing to turn off their computers when they leave work, the new International Trade Secretary has warned.

Liam Fox also said firms were failing to check the background of cleaners and other workers properly, warning there was a “lack of security clearance for staff ”.

Dr Fox said he feared Britain’s biggest companies were showing a “lack of understanding” about the risks of cyber security and warned that the UK was constantly at war with an “invisible enemy”.

The comments came in an interview with a US radio presenter, Hugh Hewitt, during a trip to America to explore a possible trade deal after Britain leaves the European Union.

The former defence secretary who was handed the new Department for International Trade in Theresa May’s reshuffle raised concerns about how prepared British companies are for a possible cyber attack.

“What worries me is the lack of understanding that we face in our economic organisations and a lot of our big companies about the risks of cyber security,” he said.

Dr Fox said “a lot of it is preventable by relatively simple behaviour” including making people “remember to switch their computers off and not just their screens when they leave their offices”.

He said at some companies there is a “lack of security clearance for staff right down to cleaners who have access to property when everyone else is away” and raised the prospect of insiders installing malware on computers that are not turned off.

Dr Fox said: “We have to recognise that we are constantly in what I would characterise as the ‘war of the invisible enemy’ [and] we need to insure that we are willing to spend money on the risks that we cannot see.”

“We have to recognise that we are constantly in what I would characterise as the ‘war of the invisible enemy’’’