All the departments of the organization have access to different kinds of sensitive data. It is their responsibility to protect this data. If all branch employees are not aware of the cyber security basics there are high chances of inadvertently letting in cyber criminals into the network. Major security breaches in the past history suggest lack of cyber security awareness among all the employees. An HR employee may receive an email from company president for some data of all the employees of the organization and the HR employee sends the data across exactly as asked without even thinking twice if the email address of president is authentic or is it from a hacker impersonating as president and ask for sensitive employee data. For an HR employee to understand the difference between the above scenarios it is important they have a good training on cyber security.
Per IDG’s 2016 Global State of Information Survey, 48 percent of data security breaches are caused by acts of malicious intent, human error or system failure account for the rest. According to the Ponemon Institute, 60 percent of employees use the exact same password for everything they access. Meanwhile, 63 percent of confirmed data breaches leverage a weak, default, or stolen password. Hence it is very important for you to spread cyber security awareness among all the employees of your organization and not limit it to any particular branch.
It is important for every employee of the company to be vigilant to any data breach or cyber attack. Here are few cyber security basic which must be taught to every employee of your organization:
- Be prepared – Keep an eye open for any unusual activity on their machine
- Never attach personal devices to any office machines
- Updated employee cyber security trainings
- Keep secure passwords
- Report any suspicious activity
- Scan all the systems regularly
- Don’t send any sensitive information over email
Employees are the weak links in business cyber security systems, especially the employees of non IT departments. They are most targeted by hackers to breach the network. Hence to thwart would-be data thieves and to prevent cyber attacks, it is crucial to make all the employees a part of your cyber security solution.