The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

Cybersecurity Expert Tips: Avoid Scams and Protect Yourself and Your Business

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 48

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In this week’s episode of The Social Media Takeaway, I’m joined by Wayne Denner, a cybersecurity expert who shares essential tips for staying safe online. With cybercriminals ramping up their scams, Wayne explains how to spot phishing emails, avoid delivery scams, and protect your personal information. We also discuss the importance of digital hygiene, from using strong passwords to enabling two-factor authentication. This episode is packed with practical advice to keep you, your family, and your business safe online.  

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Louise McDonnell:

Welcome to the Social Media Takeaway. I'm your host Louise McDonnell, and this is the podcast for business people who want to learn how to use social media to find more customers for their business. So if you enjoy the show, please make sure you subscribe. And if this episode is of interest to any of your friends, family, or business contacts, please make sure that you share it with them. So today I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Wayne Denner. He is a cybersecurity expert. He is a speaker, author, and trainer, and has spent over 21 years in the digital space using social media, smartphone tech and the internet to his advantage. Wayne speaks to 50, 000 students and their parents and businesses every year. So he knows what he's talking about. You're very welcome, Wayne.

Wayne Denner:

Thank you, Louise. Delighted to be here.

Louise McDonnell:

Good, good, good, good, good. So cyber security. I mean, it's probably always relevant, but getting more and more relevant as time moves on. Do you want to kind of tell us how you kind of came to be an expert in this area? Yeah.

Wayne Denner:

Yeah, actually, purely by accident I get into this space about 20 years ago now. My background was in software development. And I was a programmer by background originally. And. Back in those days, one of the local schools in my area was having some issues with children and young people using social media and the internet and some cyberbullying taking place. Now the school reached out to me, got in touch with me and says, Wayne, is there any chance you could come in and deliver a workshop to parents about online safety? Now, I must confess, I knew absolutely nothing about online safety, nevermind cyber security at that point. This is going back 20 years ago. But I was a young parent myself. I had an interest in technology and I did a little bit of research and I realized pretty quickly that the technology is moving very, very quickly. There are lots of risks, not only to businesses, and we'll talk a little bit about that later on, but there are risks to each and every one of us. When we go on to a social media platform, or we're buying something online, or we're using our debit or credit card, how can we be safe? And how can we use the technology positively and responsibly? So I came up with a workshop. I went into the school and I delivered a short 25 minute presentation on how to keep your children safer online. Here are some things to think about Privacy settings or the platform that they might be using. I'm pretty much. It's snowballed from there. A number of other local schools got back in touch and says, Look, we really like that workshop that you did in one of the local schools. We have a child there or one of our family members went to that school on the night. Could you come into our school and deliver a similar workshop on a kind of snowball from there? And then they asked me that I have anything for, Children and young people, where I could deliver specific workshops for secondary school students on how to be safe when they're using the Internet and social media. And that's where I originally started from now to speaking to over 50, 000 students and their families each and every year in schools right across the country. And of course, comes with that then. The work on the business and the commercial side of things, because that's a huge area for businesses. How do you keep your business safe? How do you protect your brand online? What happens if your business systems are compromised? How do you manage that? How do you put a strategy in place? So really, it's working with businesses from that perspective on how to help keep them safe online. So it's been a bit of an interesting journey over the past 20 years, because as you know, technology is changing all the time and there are new platforms to try and wrap your head around. With the new platforms comes new risks and vulnerabilities. So it's, it's an ongoing process for me trying to a keep myself up with what the latest risks and trends are, and then trying to communicate that effectively with, people in a user friendly format. And that's really important because sometimes when we talk about technology and you'll know this from, working with businesses from a digital marketing perspective, you have to pitch it at the right level so that people can understand. What it is you're talking about and you can help bring them along on the journey. And that's really important. So it's trying to humanize that content and make it as user friendly and actionable as a possible so that people can go away from maybe watching a video or attending a workshop and they can implement some things that help keeps their family safe and protects their business.

Louise McDonnell:

Just as you're talking there, it's occurring to me like this, when you think of all the different generations, and I think of, let's say my parents, you know, that Wouldn't have grown up at all with technology and probably have adapted, but it, you know, wouldn't be anything that they had growing up, or it's something that has come to them later in life. And then there is my generation who, we didn't like, as my kids would say, what, you know, what age were you when you got your first phone? It's like, I was working in my twenties, you know? So again, it's something that we, have adapted to, you know, we didn't have social media in school. We didn't have. phones, anything like that. And then you have the younger kids that they've never known their lives without it. And so how they use it is very different.

Wayne Denner:

Exactly. And we're the first generation of parents to be growing up with this technology in our children's lives. So my parents didn't have to deal with the challenges and the fallout of social media where maybe somebody said something about you on a Snapchat group or WhatsApp group or somebody took a photograph of you and then use that inappropriately. So my parents didn't have that tech challenge piece, which is so difficult for parents in the current. World and time that we find ourselves in, because it is overwhelming for a lot of mums and dads out there, and they're not sure what they should be doing, or maybe they're not familiar with the platforms themselves. And what can they do to get involved in their child's digital world to help keep them safe? Because, as you said, the technology now is absolutely everywhere. They're growing up. With this technology and their digital natives, and sometimes I feel myself as a digital dinosaur because it's moving that quickly. And even sometimes I can struggle to pick up on, you know, some of the nuances that might be out there and really try and wrap my head around how like a be real app is being used or a new feature on snapchat. And then if we take that and we bring that to my mom and dad's age who now sort of had. To fumble or fumble their way through, how to do this. And again, they're putting themselves at risks as well. So it is something that impacts us all. And that's where that education piece is really central in all of this, you know, good education and keeping people informed.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay. So before we kind of get into to how to protect your brands online, obviously we're all people as well. So, what advice do you give to people heading towards 2025? In terms of keeping themselves safe online.

Wayne Denner:

Yeah. The big thing for me is trying to get people to practice good digital hygiene. That's really, really important because we're spending much more time on platforms using technology and we're sharing more information now than we've ever shared before. And we put a lot of trust in the platforms that we give this information to hoping that they're going to do the right thing. Thing on use the information appropriately and ethically and responsibly, but also we're also trusting them to keep the information safe We know that data breaches are on the rise. We're averaging about one data breach now every 30 days, so the likelihood of you Louise or me when my personal information or your personal information being compromised in a data breach is extremely high. It will happen. It's what to do whenever it happens, and that's where it's really important to educate people around that digital hygiene piece about not reusing or recycling passwords, using a really good password manager to keep your passwords safe and secure, having a Decent antivirus on your phone and also on the devices that you use, where if you're browsing the Internet, for example, and you accidentally click on a link and maybe, you know, it attempts to download like a drive by download, for example, or a piece of spyware onto your device, your antivirus picks up on that and helps keep your system secure. Those things are really, really important and very important. Basic level of digital hygiene that we all need to sort of be at a certain standard and that will help keep people safe Also being careful about the personal Images, videos and other content that you might be sharing across the Internet and where that information might end up on looking at your social media accounts and tightening up on your some of your privacy settings and again using things like two factor authentication across every website and platform that you use. So if it's available. Make sure that you turn it on and I explain it to people very simply. It's like adding a second lock to your front door. You need to start locking up your digital world because the likelihood of your information being compromised or you experience or becoming a victim of cybercrime is extremely high.

Louise McDonnell:

And like, it's just unreal the amount of scam emails, that are going around and like, my clients can't contact me the whole time. They're like, Louise, is this true? And you're like, no, look, look at the from, look who it's from. In saying that I got an email yesterday about a delivery and I was like about to click on the way and I was like, hang on Louise. this

Wayne Denner:

is the perfect time for it because we're moving into the fifth of season. More and more people are buying online and the cybercriminals, this is a bonanza for them. So they're ready and they're using, you know, phishing targeting texts. They're using smishing where you receive a text message or indeed they're using vishing, which is voice. Hang on. We'll have to go back overall. So the first one is

Louise McDonnell:

phishing. What's that?

Wayne Denner:

That's where somebody sends you an email. And you get an email, you know, saying, we've identified that your account details have been compromised. Please click here to reset your password or, you know, your parcel is due to arrive later on today. In case you're going to be out, please click here to choose a time that you would like our delivery driver to deliver the parcel for you. So, and again, it might. Seem like it's coming from a legitimate organization, but that's an example of a phishing attack. So they will use very realistic looking emails and in some cases links and it's very cleverly done to try and trick you into clicking on the link. So it is really important for people to be vigilant around this time of year, particularly because, The cyber criminals will be working overtime now to try and target people. So that's phishing.

Louise McDonnell:

Can I just ask a question? Cause I always wondered, so when you click the link, like you're going to a website, but like, how can they get you?

Wayne Denner:

So it's very, it's a very simple, simple process. And I classify this as very low hanging fruit. It's very simple to do. It's not sophisticated in the current scheme of some of the other cyber attacks and attempts that I've seen. It's very basic. And what they'll often do is They'll have obtained your details somewhere because your details have been compromised in a data breach. So they already have your email address. They already have your first name. They might even have your last name and they might take that information and go across onto the internet and find a little bit more about you, who you are, maybe where you live, the types of things that you're interested in before they start to target you. And what they'll often do is it'll be a basic enough email that will go out. There'll be a link in the email. And once you click on the link, they're using software in behind that, which tracks, so as soon as you click on the link, Louise, they know that you've clicked on it. Right, so they know Louise has clicked on this link. Okay, and then what you're going to next then is you're going to often a cloned web page from that particular business or brand. It might be a password reset page in the case of the postal service. It may be one of their branded pages that they've cloned and they're asking you at that point then to enter some sensitive or pertinent information. It could be let's say I've seen these examples where they've asked you to enter in order to choose a date for delivery. They've asked you to enter your email address and your password and then choose your date of delivery. Okay, so they're capturing and they're working off the pretense that most people, in fact, about 73 percent of people worldwide use the same one password everywhere. So the likelihood of you entering the same password that you use everywhere else is extremely high. Once they capture that information, then they try to log into your Facebook or they try to log into your Gmail or whatever other kind for that matter. And then that's where scam starts to really take place. So that's an example of phishing attempt. And their purpose of it really is to try and scam you to capture that personal information. Maybe it'd be a password, a pin number or indeed credit or debit card details.

Louise McDonnell:

So if you could click through, but then you quickly go, I'm not going to give any other information here. You're probably okay.

Wayne Denner:

Yes. No. Okay. So remember I said they'll know that you will have clicked through. So what they will do then is they will attempt that again. Okay. With with a slightly different approach. Come on. Yeah, they'll go to lengths where they look at socials, they look across the open web, and they'll try to find further vulnerabilities in you to try and get you then to complete what it is they need to do.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay.

Wayne Denner:

they do follow up.

Louise McDonnell:

That's phishing.

Wayne Denner:

That's phishing. Then you have smishing, which is the same thing, pretty much just on an SMS. Okay. So you receive a text message, maybe through WhatsApp or through your phone. And it's the same sort of idea in that message is some. Company or a cyber criminal claiming to be from a company or an organization and there's a link in there as well. And again, you click on the link, you're taken to a web page. That's how the process sort of rolls out. And then vishing is where somebody phones you up and they attempt to scam you over the phone. And we're seeing a lot of automation now, particularly in this as well. There is automation in the first two, because what often the cyber criminals will do is they've got a list of email addresses or numbers from somewhere. And they just blasted out to everybody. And it's basically just a numbers game. They're using open source software. A lot of the time to do this so you can get this software off the Internet. You don't even need to buy it. The software is out there again. They will automate a lot of the process up so that they're just sitting watching. the analytics and in the back end, then to see who's clicking, who's opening and a lot of it then is highly driven by artificial intelligence. So we're seeing AI tools now used to make the, campaign, if you will, much more realistic in terms of the language that is used, you know, this sort of stuff from some of these AI tools where you can make it personal, you can make it, you know, more human sounding. All of that sort of stuff. And again, with voice vishing in particular, they only need about two seconds to five seconds of your voice to be able to clone it. Yeah, that's what people don't realize, you know, and that's a big worry, particularly where deep fakes now are starting to become part of all of this as well, where, you know, you can take a YouTube video from somebody off the Internet or a video from Facebook and you can download it and then you can clone the voice. Using some of the AI tools that are out there, and we're seeing more of that now moving into WhatsApp scams in particular, where elderly people in particular or vulnerable people are being targeted through voice cloning scams where you think it's a caregiver or a parent or somebody, you know, it's the cyber criminals and behind it, and they've managed to get access to your WhatsApp account.

Louise McDonnell:

Wow. So they can leave, potentially leave a voice note to a parent saying, Hey, I'm on somebody else's phone here. Something's happened to me. I need you to do blah, blah, blah. So I suppose we need to do is not believe anything.

Wayne Denner:

Yeah. But being skeptical is no bad thing. You know, if it's too good to be true on the internet, Social media. You really gotta, scratch below the surface. You know, just don't take everything you see online on a face value. Like I'm doing a radio interview tomorrow now about people being scammed in relation to signing up for certain things online. And it's again, trying to tell people to, to go away and look at the provider or look at the seller. look at their reviews, check out their company website, look and see what trail of reputation they have out there before you part with any of your hard earned cash or you give any of your personal details. That's really, really important. And again, take five. If something sounds a wee bit weird or you're concerned about it, or they're trying to pressurize you into giving information. you can end that call of any time. Sometimes that happens where people will be phoned at home, often vulnerable people where there'll be individuals phoning up claiming to be from your bank and trying to get you to give account information, transfer money. So it's really important that people do remain vigilant.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, I watched you probably know this episode of this it was a, a thing on Netflix. It was based in the UK and it was, oh God, it was horrible to watch because you could just see what was going to happen. You could see the scammers and how, Organized they were and they rang this old lady and of course got the information out of her and then they had just sold their house and they ended up taking 82, 000, into another bank account. And it was like, Oh my goodness, you know, everyone should watch that because. you just don't expect it sometimes, you know,

Wayne Denner:

and it comes out of the blue often. And this is the perfect time for the game because people are preoccupied with Christmas right there. They're doing their Christmas shopping. There's family arriving. They got to get Christmas, lots of stuff and people are really, really busy. So again, when you get that call, you're in the middle of something else, but it is really important to be vigilant. Interestingly enough, in the past couple of weeks, O2 in the UK have brought out a fantastic AI pushback at all of this now where they've created an AI granny. Scammer. So what happens is when people report the numbers that they're getting these scam calls from the AI will phone back and it's a, granny. It's a, it's your nanny for a fact, phoning the scammers back and actually keeping the scammers on the phone for extended periods of time. And it's all automated. It's all done by AI. And this is a campaign and an initiative that O2 have come out with to try Fight back against the scammers. And I think it's a fantastic use of AI to push back against these particular individuals that are using social media platforms and apps and technology to scam vulnerable people in our community. So it's nice to see AI in this case being used as a fight back

Louise McDonnell:

it must be a nightmare for. all the companies like Revolut and OnPost, like, I don't believe one text message I get from OnPost, they ignore everything. And I'm like, if they're going to deliver it, they're going to deliver it. And I'm not going to click or look at anything. So it must be a nightmare for them because they're targeted so much. So, okay. That brings me to brands then. okay. Two questions, I suppose, and take them whichever order you want. There's one side like how do you protect yourself and I suppose it's probably a lot of the same advice but there's the other side then is how do you look like you're a real brand like you're a real person how do you get like you want people to sign up to your stuff you want people to come to your stuff and sign up to your freebies and all that so how do you navigate that then?

Wayne Denner:

Yeah, and that's back to, I wrote a book back in 2015 called the student's guide to an epic online reputation. And in that book, I talked a lot about the importance of your online reputation. So if we take that from a brand perspective, more and more people now are going on to the Internet to you. Consume to buy products and services to find out about different things, different companies and organizations that they might be liking to do or looking to do business with. So having that reputation in place is really, really important. And that's where making sure that. Obviously, all of your social media accounts are using your company name, your logo, your brand assets, making sure that your website again, that's your home base. A lot of the times there was a local shopping center in my local area recently had their Facebook account hacked and they lost 65, 000 followers. This is one of the biggest shopping centers, Louise, in my area, and it shows the reliance that some businesses have on social media. Don't get me wrong. Social media is fantastic, right? But if you're putting all of your eggs in one basket and something happens, let's say their policy changes or their terms of service change or something catastrophic, like your account gets taken down because you violated Their terms of services or it gets hacked, then you're really, really vulnerable and you're not in a great position. And again, that shows the importance of a, of a really good website and making sure that your website is front and center of all of your digital marketing. And again, it's your home base and you're using all of these other channels then to drive people into your website because that website gives you the ability then to be the thought leader. You could have a blog up there. You can have lots of good contact up there. You could have reviews, testimonials, videos, all of those components that really, really are the foundation in a good online reputation. Because again, people will come, they will consume the content on your website, and that's really, really important as well. And then even going beyond that, being aware of what's happening in what I call the clear web or the wider internet. Okay, really, are there any. fake accounts out are there pages out there? Have people set up reviews or have been posting reviews? Have bad actors or cyber criminals try to compromise any elements of your reputation or indeed your brand identity online and being aware of what that where that where those things are happening? And also what's happening, and that's very important for businesses to keep an eye on. And even at a very basic level, we talk about digital hygiene from a business perspective, setting up a Google alert on your business name. So if something new appears on the Internet about you. Let's say a web page is set up or, you know, you're mentioned in some sort of forum. If Google is able to pick up on that, you will get a notification and you will know that that conversation is taking place and you can go and take a look at it. And again, that's really, really important moving across onto YouTube and again, producing video content over on YouTube. And really trying to position yourself and develop that reputation piece in such a way that. If people go on to the Internet, they're able to find information about your business and your brand relatively easy, but they're also able to distinguish between the real brand. And the cloned brand or the fake brand that maybe somebody has set up to try and scam your customers or indeed to try and damage your reputation. And sometimes those things happen. We talk a lot about bad actors and cyber criminals. It could be a rival competitor that's maybe doing some of this, particularly when we see reviews getting posted online. And I've worked with a number of businesses over the years who have had. Rival competitors trying to damage their reputation online by posting fake reviews on products and services that they may provide. So it is really important for those marketing communications people within the company or the organization to be aware of that online reputation piece and just ensure that they're managing it on that. They have a strategy in place if something goes wrong. Should go wrong, and I'm keeping in mind that there are legal routes that you can go down should you need to pursue those.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay, so you've given some really good advice there for brands. So number one, set up a Google alert. I presume the same advice that you gave us in relation to passwords and two factor authentication is also going to apply. I would also say as well, because I know this is something that I would talk about as well, is that It's really important that everybody on your team, so if they have access to your social media, it's really important that they also protect themselves. So let's say somebody's personal Facebook page, that's how they access the work business page or the Facebook ads account they must also have two factor authentication turned on in their personal profile to protect the business because it might not be the owner of the business that gets hacked. It could be somebody who works or an old employee. I see so many businesses where I go check out their business settings and like, who's this person? Who's this person? Now they're gone. They're gone. I'm like, we're going to have to remove them, you know? Because. It's a weakness.

Wayne Denner:

Absolutely. Regular audits are very important with all of this sort of stuff. You know, if you have transient employees within your organization that are coming in and out or you have some person who's familiar or au fait with using social media, and maybe you aren't that familiar with it and you just sort of give them the job of doing that, or the task of doing that, and suddenly they disappear, or they move to a rival company, or, you know, again, you have to do regular audits across all of your digital assets, your social media as well. And even over in your website as well, removing administrators from the website who are no longer employees of the company. You know, making sure that you have the right access set up for who can access the server, the right permissions in place. And one thing that I find often is missed within businesses is really good training for your employees in relation to online safety. And there's a real massive opportunity with that because many of your employees will be parents themselves and a couple of the businesses that I've worked for over even the past year have brought me in to deliver an online safety workshop. But the reality of it is there are elements in that online safety workshop that are really relevant for helping keep the business. Safe, like being careful of if you're downloading attachments, for example, through your work email that, you know, you could be downloading a drive by download, where as soon as you open the PDF, it launches a virus, which infects the whole company system. And I've seen that happen time and time again, because maybe it's a small family business. There's maybe 15, 20 people working there. They don't have an I. T. department, Louise. They don't even have any antivirus on their computers, so it just takes one person to not be thinking about what they're doing, thinking that they're getting an email from a supplier, they're about to pay an invoice, but it's the cyber criminals that have gained access to the company email account, they have sent out the email, or they've been able to clone or spoof the email address, and the link that you've just clicked on runs an executable file And now has encrypted all of the computers in your business and you receive a ransom demand on screen from the cyber criminal to say, we want X amount of money in Bitcoin or we're not unlocking your systems. I've seen that happen several times in the past 12 months, and it's been down to no good antivirus in place across the system, no training at all in place, and it could have been prevented. And that's where it's really important for people. Businesses in particular to have backups of their company information. Yes, in the cloud, but a remote backup as well off site somewhere so that in the event of something catastrophic happening where your systems get compromised, you haven't lost all of that company data, and you're able to get back up and running pretty quickly. And even a very basic antivirus on your computer set up and configured the right way can protect your key business assets. On your device and if somebody should try to gain access to your system, that's ring fenced by the configuration of the antivirus software. So again, simple things like that don't cost a lot of money. Believe it or not to put in place. Can be so, so helpful if something goes wrong.

Louise McDonnell:

Do you recommend any antivirus softwares even for your computer or your phone?

Wayne Denner:

Yeah, I use one called Bitdefender. And I've been using Bitdefender now for a number of years. You can buy a license. I think I, I don't pay that much. It's probably 40, 50. Pounds a year. And that gets me five devices. So again, you could put it on multiple devices. And the other thing that people often overlook Louise is they put it on their computer on their laptop because they know I got to have an antivirus on my computer on my laptop, but you should have an antivirus in your phone as well. That's really important because your phone is a personal computer effectively, and it is vulnerable. A lot of people will say, Oh, no, no, no. But Apple devices don't get viruses. They do. There is vulnerabilities within the technology where if you download a rogue app, for example, onto your phone that contains spyware or malware, then that could impact your device as well. So having that antivirus installed on the phone as well. Gives added security. And I think that's something when you do sign up for that antivirus, make sure you apply it to your phone as well, because it will help protect us.

Louise McDonnell:

You know, and it's such an obvious thing to do, but that's really good advice. Cause I'm sure nobody has thought about it. So look, this has been really great. Like I've definitely learned so much from it. One of the things that occurred to me as well when you talk about sort of brands. Authenticity online, we move into an AI world, I think more and more, the more that you can show up on screen, not looking perfect, you know, looking like a real person that's making mistakes and, you know and anon or, you know, saying the odd thing that's you have to correct yourself. That's real, you know, and I think as we move on And for anyone listening here, like in terms of your social media, I think that's going to be critical. I think the more that you can have people on your social media, you, your team that's the way you're going to differentiate yourself from generic faceless content that can easily be copied as well. Okay. So what do you see the newest scams or where do you see it going in 2025?

Wayne Denner:

I certainly think it's going to be heavily influenced by AI and artificial intelligence. I think we're going to see more deep fakes. I think the technology is getting better. I've noticed a massive improvement over the past 12 to 18 months, particularly in some of the technology that I've been looking at. You know, even going beyond the obvious ones of Chat GPT or mid journey, you know, moving beyond those, there's a lot of disruptors in the marketplace at the moment, which are coming out with some very impressive pieces of technology, which again, taking content that might already be out there. I've been able to replicate us in such a way and make it look very realistic is something we're going to see much more of over the next 12 months and beyond. So again, that shines that spotlight back into people being aware of where their business assets are being used and how they're being used. I think that's going to be important. I think we're also going to see certainly developments in The protection side of all of this and legislation. We already have the online safety bill now in the UK, which has come into law in the Republic of Ireland. There's Commissioner in Dublin there that are responsible for the safety, the online safety commissioner now, which are really starting to look at the legislation on the laws and the parameters around more of this sort of stuff, because we are seeing it's Harms being caused as well. Me going into the other world that I work with with Children and young people in relation to how technology assisted harm and where you know that takes place and how that takes place. So I think it's an exciting time, but it's a worrying time as well. And I think from a business's perspective, it's certainly important to regularly check in on this sort of stuff. I think it's important to work with experts in the area. Yep. Whether it's from a social media perspective or a marketing perspective, there are maybe a bit more across this more than you are on getting that sort of expert counsel in terms of how to protect your business or your brand, because we will see more and more businesses being targeted, particularly some of the stuff that we've already mentioned in our conversation. So people do need to remain vigilant, do need to keep themselves informed and updated. And if they're ever in doubt where they've clicked on something, they're worried about it. Don't bury the head in the sand. Reach out as quickly as you can. You know, be mindful of the platforms and how you're retaining data, even from that very basic GDPR perspective and make sure that your business is compliant. Because if you are. Keeping or retaining a lot of information and your systems get compromised. It comes with a very, very hefty fine. If you haven't managed that process correctly. And again, it is important for businesses to think about that. We don't often think about that in relation to. the information that we might be retaining if something was to happen to our systems. What steps do I need to follow to alert whether it's the information standards commissioner or whoever it is in relation to a data breach or something that's impacted my business. So certainly I would be surrounding yourself with other people who've got some experience and expertise in those areas.

Louise McDonnell:

Brilliant. Okay. So if somebody wants to find you, because I would imagine there'll be lots of businesses interested in organizing some training what a great way to start 2025. So how do people find you then?

Wayne Denner:

Yeah, very, very easy to find, as you'd imagine. I'm across all of the usual suspects in terms of the social media platforms. I've got a great Facebook page for people who are really interested. Parents and families and want to know a little bit more information about how to keep their family safe online and just a matter of searching me on Facebook. You'll see that blue tick. Over on my website. It's just wayanddinner. com. Produce a lot of blogs and content over there. And if you're a business or a brand and you're out there following me on LinkedIn is a great way. I do videos, as you know, Louise, every couple of days and beyond in terms of what people need to know, whether it's about a drive by download or how to update a setting on your iPhone or your Android device to help improve your your cyber security. And that's a great way to connect with me as well. So I'm always happy to hear from people. If you've got a question, a concern, you're worried about something you want to book a little bit of training in or an audit. Please do reach out and get in touch. I'll be delighted to hear from you. If I can help you in any way, shape or form, that's what I'm here to do.

Louise McDonnell:

Fantastic. Well, look, thank you for coming on and sharing all your knowledge and expertise so freely with us. I thoroughly enjoyed the episode and I'm sure everybody else will too. So thanks so much.

Wayne Denner:

You're welcome.