FCSA is aware of the recent cyber-attacks on members. The consequences to employees of the affected umbrellas can be severe and may take some time to resolve. Many of those employees affected will understand just how difficult it is to fully secure systems in an era where technology is at the core of many businesses. Security, specifically IT security and data integrity, is a fundamental corporate risk.
Whilst there are current attacks underway, there is, naturally, a focus on resolving what are major system outages as soon as possible and striving to minimise the impact on employees expecting payments or having queries go unanswered. In our view it is crucial that workers are kept informed of progress.
FCSA’s view is that when a cyber-attack occurs, there should be rapid and open communication to affected workers, and that workers should be updated regularly. It is vital that steps should be taken to process payments, even if on an interim basis, as soon as is possible. It is our view that the integrity of services to, and the personal data of, workers should be of paramount concern.
FCSA recognises that, particularly in the case of ransomware attacks, the time from attack to resolution is affected by multiple factors and difficulties. These include the ability of targets to contact attackers, the involvement of law enforcement agencies and, often, engaging specialist data recovery experts to reactivate systems. It is rarely simple case of “restore from backup”.
However, we expect FCSA members to make every effort to ensure that employees are paid outstanding amounts as quickly as possible and that they are as open and honest with their employees as they can be given the need for the involvement of law enforcement personnel and recovery specialists.
FCSA is not a regulator, and its expertise is in compliance with employment and tax regulations for the sector. Nevertheless, we urge all our members, and all organisations in the supply chain, to prioritise their response to this risk by undertaking comprehensive and regular reviews of their system security and safeguarding of personal data and, at the very least, putting in place the appropriate measures recommended by the National Cyber Security Centre.
© Freelancer and Contractor Services Association Ltd 2022.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
CookieLawInfoConsent | 1 year | Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. |
elementor | never | This cookie is used by our website to allow the us to implement or change the website's content in real-time. |
hubspotutk | 5 months 27 days | HubSpot sets this cookie to keep a record of the visitors to the website. This cookie is passed to HubSpot on form submission and used when deduplicating contacts. |
JSESSIONID | session | The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. |
PHPSESSID | session | This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
_GRECAPTCHA | 5 months 27 days | This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks. |
__hssc | 30 minutes | HubSpot sets this cookie to keep a record of sessions and to determine if HubSpot should increment the session number and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. |
__hssrc | session | This cookie is set by Hubspot whenever it changes the session cookie. The __hssrc cookie set to 1 indicates that the user has restarted the browser, and if the cookie does not exist, it is assumed to be a new session. |
__hstc | 5 months 27 days | This is the main cookie set by Hubspot, for recording visitors. It contains the domain, initial timestamp (first visit), last timestamp (last visit), current timestamp (this visit), and session number (increments for each subsequent session). |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
__cf_bm | 30 minutes | This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. |
__hssc | 30 minutes | HubSpot sets this cookie to keep a record of sessions and to determine if HubSpot should increment the session number and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
hubspotutk | 5 months 27 days | HubSpot sets this cookie to keep a record of the visitors to the website. This cookie is passed to HubSpot on form submission and used when deduplicating contacts. |
_gcl_au | 3 months | Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services. |
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | 30 minutes | Hotjar sets this cookie to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. |
_hjFirstSeen | 30 minutes | Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user. |
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample | 2 minutes | Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. |
_hjIncludedInSessionSample | 2 minutes | Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit. |
__hstc | 5 months 27 days | This is the main cookie set by Hubspot, for recording visitors. It contains the domain, initial timestamp (first visit), last timestamp (last visit), current timestamp (this visit), and session number (increments for each subsequent session). |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
test_cookie | 15 minutes | The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
baqend-speedkit-user-id | 5 months 27 days | No description available. |
heyzine_session | 3 months | No description |
_hjSessionUser_2855694 | 1 year | No description |
_hjSession_2855694 | 30 minutes | No description |