Expert Articles
Employees’ Role in Cybersecurity
Reported by linkedin.com
By Elaine Bennett is a digital marketing at Bizzmark Blog
The number of cybersecurity threats is growing. Only in Australia, 89% of organizations reported being breached in 2019. Unfortunately, even if you have already invested in strong cybersecurity tools, this is not enough to protect your business from sophisticated cyberattacks.
Namely, phishing remains a major cybersecurity threat, and it does not look for your cybersecurity system’s vulnerabilities. Instead, it relies on your employees’ lack of ability to recognize a scam. Only in 2019, human error was responsible for an unauthorized data disclosure of more than 270,000 people in Australia .
As an employer, you need to educate your employees continuously and provide them with the right tools to minimize threats coming from within. Here is what you should know about the role of employees in your company’s cybersecurity.
One of the major issues businesses need to take care of is their bring-your-own-device policies. The BYOD era can boost your workplace productivity on multiple levels. By using the devices they are accustomed to, employees will perform their daily tasks faster and be more satisfied. However, there are many security concerns linked to BYOD that are still causing a headache to businesses of all shapes and sizes. BYOD is risky because it relies on the responsibility of your employees and their ability to recognize online security issues and act on them. When using their private devices, employees are more likely to visit risky content, download files from their personal inboxes, and click on social media and email links.
More and more companies are starting to realize that employees are one of the weakest links in IT security. Even if a cybersecurity incident happens, employees should know how to mitigate the risks. Not knowing what to do, they may delay the identification and resolution of potential cybersecurity issues. For example, knowing that they are responsible for the hack, many employees may simply take a few days to consider their options before reporting the problem to the IT team. The abovementioned report by Kaspersky, in 40% of companies worldwide, employees hide a security incident when it happens.
One of the major reasons why such problems happen lies in the fact that employees are not properly prepared to handle cybersecurity problems. As a business owner, you should not rely on your employees’ previous knowledge and experiences. Instead, you need to help them understand their role in the company’s security.
The study conducted by Office Team claims that an average employee spends 42 minutes daily on activities that are not related to their work. Apart from impacting their productivity, those activities may also compromise your overall business security.
This is exactly where using web filter solutions may help. These tools block access to the content that is not suitable for work (NSFW), including social media channels, gaming sites, and gambling sites. Web content filtering software monitors how employees are using the internet, recognizes suspicious content, and limits employees’ access to it.
Employee training is a critical aspect of preventing human error and minimizing cybersecurity threats. Now, to get the most out of it, you need to plan your employee cybersecurity training strategically .
For starters, inform employees about the most important cybersecurity threats. Online security is a broad term. Your goal is to focus on those cybersecurity threats that are relevant to them and to help them understand how those threats can harm the organization.
Focus on the most common cybersecurity threats that may target your organization. The first one is, unsurprisingly, phishing that remains the major cybersecurity threat for businesses. It relies on employees’ inability to recognize spam from regular content. A hacker uses social networks or emails to reach a victim, offer something catchy to them, and trick them to click on a malicious link or download an infected file.
Above all, make training mandatory for everyone. Everyone can fall victim to online hacking methods. Provide cybersecurity training to all people having access to your company’s infrastructure platforms. For example, many companies forget about third-party service providers and contractors when developing cybersecurity policies and training programs.
A cybersecurity policy outlines your company’s assets you will need to protect, the major online threats to these assets, and key rules for mitigating these risks. It should also explain how sensitive data should be stored and shared, as well as what channels and materials employees should use. A cybersecurity policy needs to be comprehensive and written in a plain language everyone can understand. Above all, it should be available to all staff members, teaching them about cybersecurity measures they need to take and the steps they should take if they notice anything odd.
Here are a few steps to take when developing a cybersecurity policy:
Always remember that many of your employees are still using their pets’ names as their passwords. Such passwords are easy to crack and, as such, they allow hackers to breach your business’ systems faster. Your goal is to explain that passwords are their first line of defense. As such, they need to be strong. For example, encourage employees to create passwords that use combinations of numbers, symbols, and letters. If it is hard for them to remember such passwords, provide them with password management tools that will make their lives easier.
This part should include clear guidelines on when it is appropriate to share your email address and how. Employees should know how to recognize spam and scam emails from regular ones and how to block them. Most importantly, they should know what links and attachments they can click on, as well as how to report anything suspicious.
If you are collecting sensitive customer information, your employees should know how to store and share such files safely. When this data is no longer needed, they should know how to destroy it safely.
Employees should know what information they should share on social networks, as well as what kind of content they should click on. Inform them about what channels are appropriate to access during work hours and provide strict guidelines on how to use them.
Employees should know when and how they can use their business devices away from the offices and how to store these devices properly. If either their business or private devices get stolen, they should know what steps to take to report a theft. An employee should also know how to store a device that is not in use, how to protect data on USB sticks, and how to use their own devices at work consciously.
As your business change and new types of online threats appear, you will need to assess and update your policy regularly.
There are many cybersecurity threats coming from within. Those are just some of the numerous examples of how employees’ negligence or carelessness may compromise your company’s security. Fortunately, you can solve this problem easily by training your employees continuously, providing solid online security policies, preparing for incidents on time and, of course, using web content filtering to limit access to the content that is irrelevant to work.
Elaine Bennett is a digital marketing specialist focused on helping startups and small businesses grow. Besides that, she’s a regular contributor for Bizzmark Blog and writes hands-on articles about business and marketing, as it allows her to reach even more people and help them on their business journey.
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