It is a sad but true fact that your employees are your number one cyber-security threat.
They are often the main gateway through which hackers gain their way into your business. All it takes, is one staff member clicking on one wrong link in an email, for cyber-criminals to get in.
But if managed and trained correctly, your staff can also be your best protection against security threats. Turning your team from a security risk into your most important line of defence is not as difficult as you may think.
The most important step is to train them all properly with cyber-security training. whether it is delivered through an online course or face-to-face session, it should be a mandatory part of all staff’s their onboarding process – along with ongoing training and refreshers.
Building a culture of awareness and vigilance is one of the best things you can do to protect your business.
For example, educating staff on the risks of opening suspicious email attachments should make them pause and think twice before opening emails they are not 100% sure about. It may also be useful to share details about attempted attacks so they can see the risks are real and what they look like.
It’s also a good idea to write a formal information security policy that all employees need to read and sign. This should set out, in clear and direct terms:
- Best practice
- What needs to be avoided
- And the procedures employees need to follow to reduce data security risks.
Your policy should also explain what actions people need to take if they suspect there has been a cyber-security incident.
You need to act fast and make the right people aware the moment anything suspicious happens. Steps can then be taken to reduce the risk of a serious incident developing by fixing gaps in your systems and making other employees aware of an emerging threat.
This can be especially important if criminals are targeting individuals by impersonating somebody known to the business, like a senior manager or a major supplier. Attacks like this have a nasty habit of hitting several people at the same time with similar techniques.
If you need help with training your staff in cyber security please contact us.