No one knows for certain just how serious the eventual economic fallout from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic will be, but at the very least businesses will face their most challenging times since 2008. Quite possibly it will be a lot worse.

For the moment you will want to concentrate on business survival, to which end we share some practical ideas on how you can respond to the crisis. 

Businesses that react calmly and sensibly in this time of panic won’t just maximise their chances of survival; they could even end up strengthening their position in readiness for the inevitable recovery and upturn… 

Cyber criminals are daily finding new and inventive ways to breach our online defences, to hack our websites, to defraud us (and our customers, suppliers, employees and families), and to generally force us to spend more and more valuable resources on protecting ourselves.

The question is, are passwords still the answer? We start off with some concerning stats in this regard and a discussion on how having to constantly manage passwords is impacting on both our businesses and the global economy. Which brings us to the million dollar question: “Could passwordless authentication be the way to go?” 

This is an evolving topic - don’t get left behind!

UK Revenue officials recently released some entertaining excuses from taxpayers:

• One taxpayer claimed their mother-in law was a witch and had cursed them.
  
  
• Some said that hamsters and dogs had eaten the post.
  
  
• A taxpayer was up a mountain and without internet access.
  
  
• Some strange expense claims were received, such as pet food for a Shih Tzu 'guard dog' and a meals claim of 250 days of sausages and chips eaten at a cost of £4.50 per day.

• 7 April – Monthly PAYE submissions and payments
  
  
• 24 April – VAT manual submissions and payments
  
  
• 29 April – Excise Duty payments
  
  
• 30 April – VAT electronic submissions and payments
  
  
• 30 April – CIT Provisional Tax Payments where applicable