Because IT is so central to business, today’s employees are completely involved in our computer systems, which ironically causes most of our problems. Any business with strong security solutions in place can keep hackers from infiltrating directly.
Phishing Exploits Human Error
To get into systems indirectly, scammers send billions of phishing messages, some of which will arrive at your company’s email. Even your built-in firewall will send most of them to spam, and an enterprise spam blocker will get rid of almost all of them. Eventually, though, one will get through to somebody’s inbox. If that person isn’t trained to spot phishing attempts, it could be a disaster.
Employee Training is Key
This is why we invest time and money training and testing our employees: so we know that they know what to do if they encounter malicious attacks. Attacks can be complex, but usually, all it takes is decoding, discarding, and reporting a hazardous message. If your staff is highly trained, it will become routine. That’s the goal. Of course, that’s not always the case.
Here’s a scary number: In one study, 77 percent of IT professionals said their companies were unprepared to confront most security challenges. Of course, IT professionals tend to think all non-techy people are idiots, so take it with a grain of salt. Still, human error is a fact.
Why Security Breaches Happen
Breaches can be separated into three categories: mistakes, negligence, and sabotage. Let’s discuss the difference.
Mistakes
Mistakes happen. Competent employees can screw up. Billions of phishing emails go out every day, so even your IT provider could click on a malicious link. If someone makes a mistake and reports it right away, it’s understandable. You should still retrain and test that person to make sure they are current on their security responsibilities.
Negligence
However, if an employee makes mistakes regularly, it’s probably negligence. A negligent employee doesn’t care about the organization’s security rules. That’s a problem for organizational network security. An employee that doesn’t take training seriously might not take his/her job seriously, either. Negligence causes the majority of cybersecurity problems. You can’t tolerate that.
Sabotage
Sabotage is when an employee purposefully undermines a business. From deleting a few project files to selling trade secrets or embezzling funds, sabotage is criminal.
Most sabotage happens because of a work relationship gone wrong. It happens. Somebody gets so mad at their coworker or supervisor that they do something to undermine them. If the saboteur still works for your company, you may not be able to prevent the damage before it happens.
However many are disgruntled ex-employees who still have access to company systems. Avoid problems by eliminating all access as soon as an employee leaves the organization. Anyone who knows where things are on your business’ network can really do damage.
Cybersecurity is a complex issue. Make sure your business has everything it needs to protect your digital assets. Call the IT experts at Quikteks today at (973) 882-4644. We can help.