The government's digital economy minster has launched a new, free online training course to help professionals protect themselves and clients from cyber-attacks.

Ed Vaizey has launched the new course, developed by the government and industry, enabling companies and businesses protect themselves from information breaches and other threats that could in some cases cost millions of pounds.

The course will increase awareness of common cyber risks and threats that my occur in the workplace and how to prevent and deal with them.

It provides advice on how to safeguard digital information and gives examples of how to deal with issues such as information breaches in the workplace. The course comes after 60% of small businesses had a security breach in the last year.

Minister for the digital economy Ed Vaizey said: “Members of the legal and accountancy professions deal with sensitive client information on a daily basis and can be a target for cyber-attacks.

“The new course we are launching today makes cyber security part of the day job for lawyers and accountants.

"It’s essential Government and industry work together to protect UK companies from online attacks that can cause millions of pounds worth of damage."

Law Society deputy vice-president Robert Bourns said: “Cyber crime has the potential to compromise both clients’ and solicitors’ sensitive data. Training to raise awareness and understanding for all involved in practice is an important part of protection.

"That is why we are supporting our members by providing this bespoke training package, developed in partnership with the Government and other professional bodies.

Martyn Jones, immediate past president of ICAEW, said: “ICAEW is committed to helping companies develop robust cyber security processes and has been working with and supporting government initiatives in this area for the last two years. Cyber security threats are a tremendous potential risk to business, in particular small and medium sized companies."

The new online course is funded by the government’s five-year, £860 million National Cyber Security Programme to make the UK one of the safest places in the world to do business online.

The programme aims to improve cyber security skills at all levels and work with associated professions to make industry more resilient to cyber-attack.

Sevenoaks Town Council's website was recently hacked and was down for maintenance for over 24 hours.

"It’s essential Government and industry work together to protect UK companies from online attacks that can cause millions of pounds worth of damage" - Ed Vaizey...

Web security expert from the University of Kent, Dr Julio Hernandez-Castro said hackers look for vulnerable websites and target them.

After the incident on the town council's website he said: "There are hundreds of thousands of hackers that sit and trawl through IP addresses looking for vulnerable sites to target and attack.

"In this case, it may have been the situation that the town council's website was vulnerable, and not much funding or attention has been applied to the security of it.

"As far as I am aware the site wouldn't contain any personal information or card details, so the council probably wouldn't see the need for heightened security.

"In my opinion I don't think the council's website was attacked for a specific reason other than its vulnerabilities, I may be wrong. The security for the site could improve and there is some aspects that the council could address in terms of technology."