The Role of Employee Education In Protecting Your Business From Cyberattacks
/In the event of a potential network attack on your company, trained employees in cybersecurity will be your defense system. They will be the ones to help you identify and report an incident and reduce the possibility of devastation occurring on your system.
A single successful attack can leave your business in financial shreds. Aside from the wreck the cybercriminals will leave you with, even legal claims may be made against your company for violating security policies. You will also lose customers. Who would like to partner with a company that cannot be trusted with personal information?
And your company may never rise from the fall! But you can avoid this.
You can avoid this by educating your employees on the measures they need to implement to secure your company in the face of an attack. This network security practice is important for companies of all sizes, whether big or small. While many small business owners think their business is not prone to attacks, 82% of ransomware attacks have been reported to hit businesses with less than 1,000 employees.
Network Security Defined
So, what is network security? Network security involves every practice put together by every player in a corporate organization to protect their network resources from external, unwarranted access, which could result in some devastating effects on the company.
Business networks comprise a range of interconnected devices, which includes wireless networks, computers, and servers which can become vulnerable to inadequate security frameworks.
Why is Cybersecurity Training Crucial for Employees of Small and Mid-sized Businesses?
As many workers transitioned to remote work, especially during the COVID pandemic, many network vulnerabilities were thrown open, leading to widespread attacks and data breaches. The FBI's 2020 Internet Crime Report has shown a 69% increase in cybercrime complaints in 2020 compared to the previous year.
The FBI's report shows that there were 2,474 ransomware incidents with adjusted losses running up to over $29 million, aside from estimated losses in businesses, wages, equipment, time, and files. It also reveals 19,369 complaints about Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes, with about $1.8 billion in adjusted losses.
241,342 phishing complaints with adjusted losses of about $54 million.
These reports signal why it is critical to secure your business data by training your employees to manage their online profiles and activities. Also, consider the kind of passwords they use for business apps on their computers and mobile devices, whether from home or other remote locations.
With your employees being adequately trained to address cybersecurity issues, they'll be the first defense systems for your company against any form of cybersecurity situation.
So, it is important to think again if you think your business is not at risk. If you need to understand how employee education can help secure your business from cyberattacks, here are things you must know.
Cybersecurity Risks That May Result in Your Employee Unknowingly Compromising Data Security
Even when you think you already have a secure IT structure, your employees might not know or understand how best to manage security solutions and situations for the company's benefit.
Your business is highly vulnerable if you have dispersed team members using their mobile devices and personal computers to access business resources.
Some popular cybersecurity risks on employee mobile devices and computers include:
Disabled spam filters for individual email accounts.
Lack of attention paid to details in security alerts and update patches.
Absence of professional/advanced anti-virus software.
Storing account information to multiple accounts in a single accessible document.
Maintaining a single password for multiple business and personal accounts.
Including weak or predictable indicators such as names, date of birth, age, etc., in personal emails and other accounts.
The best way to ensure your employees stick to the rules of security and defend your network resources against attacks is to organize training for them often. And you must prioritize this, especially if your employees work from home.
The role of employee education in securing your corporate resources over the network is highlighted below.
1. Employees Should Be Wary of Unknown Sources
Employees should be trained to detect fake and unfamiliar sources and avoid clicking links or opening attachments from those sources, whether via email or anywhere else on the web. Violating this policy could result in downloading malicious software onto the system.
2. Employees Should Ensure Sensitive Information Are Kept Secure
Employees must never share sensitive information. Training employees to be secretive about sensitive company details ensures that passwords and credit card information are kept away from being tracked. If such information leaks, it could be used to commit cybercrimes and identity fraud.
3. Employees Should Ensure Software Applications Are Updated
Employees should ensure their software is consistently updated to prevent bugs in company applications. All company and employee software, including web browsers and operating systems, must be updated often to provide the latest security patches.
4. Employees Should Support A Strong Password Culture
The role of employee education on network security brings consciousness to employees on creating strong passwords for their accounts and avoiding easy-to-guess passwords. Instead, they will use a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters and change the passwords from time to time to minimize the possibility of a compromise occurring.
5. Employees Should Support Multi-Factor Authentication
Employees should deploy multi-factor authentication for their online accounts. Reports show that this security practice assures up to 99% security against data breaches. However, this extra security layer is tough for any hacker as it often requires that an attacker have access to extra security identification which could be a One-Time Password (OTP) sent to a user's mobile device, a fingerprint, or facial identification.
6. Employees Should Respond Intelligently to Cyberattacks
If all security postures fail and a data leak situation occurs, employees will know how to respond in such a situation. They should be able to immediately report any suspicious activity through proper channels to the company security or IT department. They should also avoid trying to fix the situation alone as they could ignorantly worsen it.
Employee education will help you raise awareness across departments in your company about how critical cybersecurity is among your employees and other stakeholders of the company. In addition, it will help everyone within the company become increasingly efficient in securing business data from ransomware attacks, BEC frauds, phishing scams, and other malicious activities against network security.
