Black Swan Cyber Security Solutions

Black Swan Cyber Security Solutions Empowering SMBs and nonprofits with cybersecurity solutions that provide peace of mind.

We offer proven strategies and proactive protection, so you can focus on what matters most.

02/09/2026

Data scattered across systems? That makes finding answers slow and messy.

Microsoft Fabric brings your business data into one place — with AI and analytics built in — so your team can find insights quickly and act confidently.

Because security and governance are part of the platform, your information stays protected as you scale and start using AI.

Bring an AI-ready data foundation to your organisation with Bitz 'n' PC'z Ltd.

https://microsoft.channext.com/bitz-n-pcz-ltd/co-pilot-bizzapps-sales-sv?lang=en_US&utm_source=fb&utm_term=43338

I have never liked the phrase “people are the weakest link.” It is convenient because it turns a system problem into a p...
02/09/2026

I have never liked the phrase “people are the weakest link.” It is convenient because it turns a system problem into a people problem.

Someone clicks a convincing phishing link. Fine. But what happened next?

Why did the email reach them in the first place?

Why could one stolen password give an attacker access to so much?

Why was there no alert when somebody logged in from somewhere unusual?

Why could the account move around the organisation freely?

Perhaps most importantly, did the person feel able to put their hand up immediately and say: “I think I’ve clicked something I shouldn’t have.”

Because the first few minutes after a mistake can matter far more than the mistake itself.

People will make mistakes.

So will software developers.

So will suppliers.

So will managers.

So will security professionals.

Good cyber security does not depend on everybody making the perfect decision, every time, while they are busy, distracted or under pressure.

It assumes people are human and builds protection around them.

Good email filtering helps.

MFA helps.

Limited permissions help.

Endpoint protection helps.

Monitoring helps.

Clear reporting routes help.

A culture where admitting a mistake gets you help rather than a telling-off helps enormously.

Training is important, but training should never become an excuse for weak technical controls or poor processes.

If your entire security model falls apart because one busy person makes one bad decision, the person probably isn't the weakest part of that model.

Your staff are not a firewall - Please stop treating them like a disappointing one.

The longer I work in IT, the more convinced I become that many cyber security problems are not caused by a lack of techn...
01/09/2026

The longer I work in IT, the more convinced I become that many cyber security problems are not caused by a lack of technology.

They are caused by a lack of ownership.

A former employee still has access because nobody removed the account.

A backup job says “successful”, but nobody has actually tried restoring anything from it.

A critical update has been postponed because restarting the computer is inconvenient.

A security alert has gone to an inbox that nobody checks outside office hours.

None of those sounds particularly dramatic and that is the point.

A great deal of cyber risk lives in ordinary jobs that everyone assumes somebody else is dealing with.

These days, some of the most useful questions I ask are very simple:

Who owns this?

How do we know it actually worked?

What happens when that person is on holiday?

If this system disappeared tomorrow, how quickly could the organisation carry on?

Good cyber security is often boring on purpose.

Leavers lose their access.

Updates get installed.

Backups get restored and tested.

Alerts reach somebody who knows what to do with them.

A green dashboard is nice. Being able to keep the organisation running when something goes wrong is better.

The aim isn't to make an organisation look secure. It's to stop an ordinary gap becoming a very expensive week.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘆𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝘀?

Like most paper cuts, this one could be quite painful.PaperCut has warned that attackers are actively exploiting a zero-...
28/08/2026

Like most paper cuts, this one could be quite painful.

PaperCut has warned that attackers are actively exploiting a zero-day vulnerability affecting all versions of PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF.

PaperCut says it is already aware of confirmed attacks against customers.

For anyone unfamiliar with PaperCut, it's print management software used by organisations around the world, and you'll find it in plenty of schools and universities too.

The immediate concern is organisations that have their PaperCut Application Server exposed to the internet. PaperCut has released emergency patches and is advising customers to restrict access to the web interface to trusted IP addresses using firewall rules or other network controls.

There's another reason I'd take this seriously.
Back in 2023, a different PaperCut vulnerability was exploited by multiple threat actors.

Microsoft linked some of that activity to Clop and LockBit ransomware, while the FBI and CISA specifically warned about exploitation against the education sector.

So if you run PaperCut NG or MF:

Don't put this on next week's patching list.
Check whether the server is internet-facing.
Apply the emergency update or mitigation.
Check the published indicators of compromise.

This is also a useful reminder of something I say quite often:

Cyber security isn't just about stopping somebody clicking a phishing email.

Sometimes the vulnerability is sitting quietly in a perfectly legitimate piece of software you rely on every day and no amount of security awareness training can patch a print server.

Cyber insurance forms can be stressful.They often ask about MFA, backups, updates, staff training, endpoint protection a...
27/08/2026

Cyber insurance forms can be stressful.

They often ask about MFA, backups, updates, staff training, endpoint protection and incident response.

Many small businesses are not sure what they already have in place, let alone how to answer with confidence.

We help you work through it in plain English.

We check where you are now, explain what needs attention, and help you put sensible protection in place.

That gives you clearer answers for insurers, clients and tenders.

Comment below, send us a DM or contact us via our website for more info - link in the comments.

The UK Government wants the power to tell organisations to stop using certain technology suppliers on national security ...
26/08/2026

The UK Government wants the power to tell organisations to stop using certain technology suppliers on national security grounds.

Potentially without telling the public which supplier is considered the risk.

That should make every organisation think a little harder about its supply chain.

Proposed amendments to the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill would allow ministers to order organisations in critical sectors to stop buying from a supplier, restrict its technology or even remove equipment already installed.

The powers could cover managed service providers, data centres and digital infrastructure, alongside sectors such as energy, water, transport and health.

I appreciate the reasoning behind this. If a technology supplier has links to a hostile state and its products could potentially be used for espionage, sabotage or disruption, waiting until something actually happens isn't much of a security strategy.

There's also a lesson here for organisations nowhere near critical national infrastructure too.

We spend a lot of time assessing the security of our own networks. We don't always spend enough time assessing the companies we've trusted with access to them.

A supplier doesn't necessarily need to be malicious either. If they're compromised, suddenly their privileged access or software becomes somebody else's route into your organisation.

That's why I think supplier due diligence needs to become a much more normal part of cyber security for SMEs and schools.

Not a 40-page questionnaire that nobody reads.

Just sensible questions:

Who has access to our systems?

Where is our data?

What happens if this supplier is compromised?

How quickly could we remove or replace them?

Cyber security isn't just about protecting the technology you've bought. It's also about understanding who you've trusted by buying it.

Source: https://therecord.media/uk-technology-national-security

Imagine closing a deal without switching apps.Your account manager opens Outlook, views the customer history, edits a qu...
26/08/2026

Imagine closing a deal without switching apps.

Your account manager opens Outlook, views the customer history, edits a quote and sends it — all without flipping tabs.
Finance receives the figures as soon as the deal closes.
Inventory updates automatically in the background.
Not a single number is copied between systems.

That’s how teams using Bitz 'n' PC'z Ltd and Microsoft Business Central are running sales today: fewer touchpoints, less friction, more deals closed.

Want to see if this could simplify things for your school or business?
🌐 https://microsoft.channext.com/bitz-n-pcz-ltd/microsoft-dynamics-365-business-central-en-gb?lang=en_US&utm_source=fb&utm_term=43329

📧 [email protected]
📞 01246 927142

You wouldn't click a random link stuck to a parking meter, but put that same link behind a QR code and suddenly it feels...
26/08/2026

You wouldn't click a random link stuck to a parking meter, but put that same link behind a QR code and suddenly it feels legitimate.

That's the problem.

The BBC has reported on Les Howard, who needed to pay for parking while visiting Caernarfon.

He scanned the QR code on the parking meter, apparently downloaded the parking app and carried on with his day.

Except it wasn't what it appeared to be.

The following day, money started disappearing from his account in £60 chunks.

And here's the statistic that caught my attention:

Reports of QR code-related scams have increased by 700% in four years.

QR codes aren't inherently dangerous, they're just links, but unlike a normal web link, you can't see where they're taking you before you scan them.

There's also a psychological element to this. A QR code on a parking machine feels official as it's attached to something we trust.

We're usually standing there thinking about paying for parking, getting to an appointment, meeting someone or avoiding a ticket.

We're not thinking about cyber security.

Criminals don't always need to hack technology.

Sometimes they just need to exploit context, trust and urgency.

My rule with QR codes is simple - Treat every QR code like a link you can't see.

If it's asking you to make a payment, download an app or enter login details, take a few seconds to verify it independently.

For parking apps in particular, I'd rather search for the operator's official app myself than trust a sticker on a machine.

Businesses using QR codes need to think about this too - If customers are being told to trust a QR code in your physical premises, who is checking that somebody hasn't put another one over the top?

Cyber security isn't always about sophisticated hackers.

Sometimes it's literally a sticker.

BBC story: Les used a QR code to download a parking app - but it was a scam - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyjqg578e1o

A few months ago I spoke to a business owner who'd just had a significant cyber incident.They had IT support. They thoug...
25/08/2026

A few months ago I spoke to a business owner who'd just had a significant cyber incident.

They had IT support. They thought they were covered.

What they had was someone great at keeping the day-to-day running - a trusted employee who'd grown into looking after the tech. No criticism of that person at all.

What they didn't have was anyone monitoring for threats, managing their backups properly, or with a plan for what to do when something went wrong.

The incident cost them weeks of disruption and money they hadn't budgeted for.

When I explained the difference between IT support and cyber security, the penny dropped immediately.

"I just assumed they were the same thing."

They're not and that gap is where most small business cyber incidents begin.

I run a small business myself and I know budgets don't stretch to a dedicated cyber security team.

That's why many organisations work with specialists.

When we support a client, they're not just getting Kevin from Chesterfield. They're gaining access to security operations centres, threat analysts, incident responders and security researchers from companies such as Heimdal and Huntress.

It's not another tool.

It's a team.

Both IT support and cyber security matter.

But expecting the same person to do both, on top of their actual job, can be a lot to ask.

Nottingham again.Nottingham Trent University has today appeared on a ransomware leak site, with the ShadowByt3$ group cl...
25/08/2026

Nottingham again.

Nottingham Trent University has today appeared on a ransomware leak site, with the ShadowByt3$ group claiming to have compromised the university.

At this stage, that is exactly what it is: a claim by a ransomware group. I haven't seen confirmation from NTU yet, so it would be wrong to present it as an established breach.

But the timing is difficult to ignore.

Just a couple of months ago, the University of Nottingham confirmed that attackers had accessed a significant amount of data from its student records system, affecting students and alumni and potentially including financial information.

Now another major university in the same city is being named by a ransomware group.

Universities are particularly difficult environments to secure.

Thousands of students. Thousands of staff. Researchers. Contractors. Visitors. Huge numbers of devices. Legacy systems. Cloud services. Web applications. Valuable research and an enormous amount of personal data.

Unlike most businesses, you can't simply lock everything down and make access incredibly restrictive. Universities are supposed to be open, collaborative environments.

That's what makes cyber security in education such a balancing act.

I've worked in education IT for over 20 years, and one thing I've learned is that these incidents shouldn't be used to point fingers at the IT teams dealing with them.

They should make the rest of us ask better questions.

Are our internet-facing systems patched?

Is MFA protecting the accounts that matter?

Would we spot unusual activity quickly?

Can we recover if something gets encrypted?

Do we actually know what sensitive information we're holding and where?

For now, I'll be watching for confirmation from Nottingham Trent University.

But two major Nottingham universities appearing in cyber security headlines within a matter of months should certainly get people's attention.

Address

Unit 50, Clocktower Business Centre, Works Road, Hollingwood
Chesterfield
S432PE

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Black Swan Cyber Security Solutions posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Black Swan Cyber Security Solutions:

Shortcuts

Share

Category