While the importance of having an effective website with good SEO and good content cannot be doubted, it is just as important to ensure it is kept secure.

Cyber security requires good hosting and backups to ensure your data is kept safe and that any problems with your site, such as a denial-of-service attack, cannot keep it down for long. This is why having a website designer in Hull who can build such resilience into your systems is crucial.

This is an issue that has been a high priority for any clued up IT user for years. There are many viruses and attacks out there, with motivations being varied. Some are simply malicious mischief makers, some look to trick people into giving away money or data (known as phishing) and others seek to steal or extort cash or stop a site functioning.

Russia is a country that has become notorious for cyber attacks and amid the country’s war in Ukraine, there has been increasing speculation that Vladimir Putin’s tactics may include launching more cyber attacks on the west.

Sky News was the latest to report on this idea. It quoted cyber security expert Dmitri Alperovitch, who recently told the Alperovitch thinktank that Mr Putin may launch such attacks in response to western economic sanctions.

Declaring of sanctions that “Russia’s not going to take that laying down,” he predicted: “It’s going to retaliate against the West, including in cyberspace.”

The report followed claims by the Daily Express that Russian firms had been ordered to move operations to domestic servers and stop using foreign JavaScript, as a possible prelude to a wider cyber attack on the west.

Of course, such stories may be inaccurate and it is perhaps worth noting that Mr Alperovitch said the focus of a Russian cyber war campaign against the west might only come when they could focus on it after getting Ukraine “under more control” and achieve their “military objectives on the ground”, something they have thus far failed to do.

However, there could be something big and bad on the way, according to Crowdstrike chief executive George Kurtz. Speaking to Yahoo News, the cyber security expert said that his firm, which works with 15 of the 20 biggest banks in the world, has been helping them prepare for a possible flurry of denial of service attacks, after a “devastating” spate of such incidents in 2018.

He remarked: “People are looking for potential denial of service or other retaliatory intrusions that could disrupt the financial sector, markets, et cetera. So everyone is on high alert.”

Of course, attacks aimed at specific firms, especially if they are state-sponsored, are by their nature likely to go after major economic players, not a new, small business that has recently got its website up and running. But there is always a danger of viruses and system problems that can affect those not intended as targets.

Whatever happens in Ukraine in the weeks and months ahead, concerns about Russian cyber warfare will not go away anytime soon. But nor is the country the only source of threats. For that reason, it is vital to work with the experts to ensure your IT systems and website remain secure whatever is going on in the world.