3 quick wins to reduce cyber risk

19 December 2025

As the week wraps up, it’s a good time to take care of a few small tasks that lower cyber risk. These don’t need deep technical skills or a long meeting. They’re practical checks your team can repeat every Friday.

Below are three actions we recommend to our financial services clients.

1) Review shared folders and remove extra access

Shared folders tend to grow messy over time. People change roles, projects end, and access is rarely cleaned up.

Set aside 15 minutes to ask:

• Who still needs access to this folder?

• Who no longer works on this work?

Remove anyone who doesn’t need it today. Fewer people with access means fewer chances for mistakes, leaks, or misuse. This is one of the simplest ways to cut exposure without changing how people work.

2) Make sure software and devices are up to date

Updates fix known security problems. When they’re delayed, those problems stay open.

Before the weekend:

• Check that company laptops and desktops have installed their latest updates

• Confirm key business software has updated this week

If your systems are set to update automatically, this is a quick spot-check. If not, it’s worth a reminder to staff to restart devices so updates can finish installing.

3) Remind staff about passwords and MFA

Password habits slip when people are busy. A short reminder helps.

Send a brief note asking staff to:

• Use a different password for work systems than for personal accounts

• Avoid reusing old passwords

• Always approve multi-factor authentication (MFA) requests they expect, and report any they don’t

This takes minutes and reduces the chance that a single stolen password leads to a larger issue.

Why this matters

None of these steps are complex. The value comes from doing them regularly. Small checks, done often, lower risk far more than a one-off clean-up once a year.

If you’d like help turning these checks into a short weekly routine, Maple can support you. We work with finance teams across London to keep IT clear, manageable, and secure.