5th February 2013 – Today marks the tenth anniversary of Safer Internet Day. At a time when cybercrime is said to cost the UK economy £27 billion a year and businesses have never been more aware of the security risks they are taking on a daily, or even hourly basis, Safer Internet Day should be marked by all of us.

While Safer Internet Day is predominantly held to promote safer and more responsible use of the internet among children and young people globally – with many schools, charities and other industry stakeholders participating to raise awareness – it is well worthwhile taking the opportunity to reconsider security online within organisations and across your professional and personal lives.

Only recently, Twitter was hacked, affecting 250,000 users globally. The number of large-scale online technology breaches that have caused disruption to organisations and individuals over the past year is incredible, and yet security and safety online continue to be a topic that needs to be educated on.

With the increasing number of devices and platforms we are bringing into the workplace, using at home to access confidential information, or forgetting to log out of and leaving unprotected lying around, it’s hardly surprising how many breaches we suffer personally. And, increasingly, our lack of security is affecting the businesses and organisations we work for.

Safer Internet Day provides us with a good opportunity to re-evaluate our existing technology security measures and policies and encourage employees to be more mindful of how they behave and interact online (as well as on their mobiles, in social networks, in the cloud etc.). It’s encouraging that Safer Internet Day is promoting responsibility and awareness among the next generation as they will have an even more technologically-advanced working environment. However, right here and now, we still have some work to do on the current workforce.