Employees Remain The Biggest Threat To Your Company Cybersecurity
By: Jim Stickley and Tina Davis
July 5, 2019
Providing employees with cybersecurity awareness training is a growing necessity for organizations. Careless and uninformed employees pose the biggest threat to an organization’s cyber-resilience, according to findings by Kaspersky for Business. The report finds that 1 in 5 serious data breaches are caused by employees. Since 60% of small-to-medium sized companies go out of business after a data breach, the report provides insight that should no longer be ignored by business owners of all sizes. It’s survival of the cyber-fittest in the face of growing data breaches, and the best defense is a well-informed employee trained to spot and react appropriately to hacking efforts.
The fear a business has for data compromise is real, and employees are the front-line for keeping a business cybersafe. It makes a great deal of sense to give them the training they need on an ongoing basis, as hacking methods change and trend over time. In an age of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) for work, Kaspersky finds that 47% of business worries are the inappropriate sharing of data using mobile devices. Even worse, 46% fear those devices will be lost, potentially putting company data in the wrong hands. Hackers aren’t wasting any time finding the best way to compromise your data and their tactics keep getting more effective and devastating. Educating and testing employees to ferret-out those tactics is an investment in the current and future safety of all businesses. Kaspersky offers several ways to help make that happen.
One click is all it takes. Keep employees continually informed on the latest hacks and how to avoid them. One wrong click on a link or attachment is all it takes to infect your corporate network.
- From the bottom to the top. All levels of employees need cyber education, from CEO’s on down–no one is immune from hacking.
- The weakest link. Every level of an organization is vulnerable, and only as strong as its weakest link. All it takes is one employee misstep to bring down a business.
- Plan for the worst. A business must have a plan in the face of a hack. Keeping afloat after a compromise takes enormous resources and having a quick-action plan can limit the damage.
- Testing–1-2-3. Routinely test employees and their cyber-savvy skills. Waiting until a hack happens to find out how knowledgeable (or not) your employees are may be too late.
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