Our imagination is filled by visions directly from a James Bond film whenever we talk about “cyber crime.” We picture groups of mysterious, faceless hackers—masked, black-clad people who break down defences and attack online networks from a bunker in the ground in Siberia.
Cyber crime isn’t nearly as sweet as it sounds, and it starts much closer to home than you might think. Also, hackers don’t always target the defenses or network of your business. Most of the time, they go after people who are more human, fallible, or weak.
Targets like the people you hire.
For instance, as per Stanford Research, 88% of data breaches are due to human mistakes. Human mistakes may include clicking on suspicious links, making passwords that are not secure, and failing to delete important files from the device. Whichever mistake you make, it will surely affect your company’s reputation and budget.
Here are some tips on how to protect your employees from the biggest threats on the internet by giving them the best defence: knowledge. That being said, let’s start with the question: why does training employees on hacking start with a business?People are your first line of defence, and sometimes your only one.
Yes, when it comes to certain types of attacks, like social engineering, your workers are your best (and sometimes only) defence against cyber threats.
Social engineering constitutes one form of cyber crime where scammers use deception, coercion, and mental tactics on individuals to trick them into doing things.
It can be providing confidential information to the scammer, allowing them access to private networks, or even allowing them access to your computer/network to install malicious software such as ransomware. According to a recent survey carried out among security practitioners, ransomware was the greatest fear among the C-suites of these companies regarding data security in 2023 compared to less than half (44%) in 2022. This is a very bad threat.
Big Bad Cyber Crime Wolf doesn’t have to use brute force or a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack to destroy your business in these kinds of schemes. They only need to put on grandma’s glasses and flash that sharp, beautiful smile to get inside. It’s because of this that social engineering attacks are both very successful and surprisingly common; 98% of cyberattacks use some kind of social engineering.
That doesn’t mean your company shouldn’t spend money on security tools, though. It should definitely happen.
Antivirus software, VPNs, firewalls, encryption, access controls, and plans for what to do in case of an event are all very important pieces of technical infrastructure. We are only saying that training employees should always come first when it comes to business safety. That’s out of the way. Now, here are three ways to teach your workers about some of the biggest cybersecurity risks your business will face in 2024.
1. Teach your employees about phishing and do regular drills
Teaching your workers about the dangers of phishing is one of the best things your company can do to protect its data. The FBI’s Internet Crime Report says that these schemes—in which scammers hide fake links in emails or text messages that look like the real thing—were the most common type of cybercrime in the US in 2022. The aim here was to steal information, money, and software that would do damage to your organization’s networks.
In most cases, the businesses themselves are the ones that get affected. In 2023, a whopping 94% of businesses have fallen victim to phishing attacks, and an even larger number (96% of them) reported damages done by phishing to their businesses and brands.
Also, more than a third (36%) of data breaches and 91% of all cyberattacks in general were linked to scams. This means it’s a very widespread threat.
So, to teach your workers how to spot phishing, try:
Having regular classes and training programs to teach people about phishing and how to spot a phishing email or text message. Include examples of scams that have happened in your own company if you can.
Sending fake phishing emails to your team to see how well they can spot and report phishing attempts, similar to the Red Team vs. Blue Team vs. Purple Team exercises used in cybersecurity training.
Your workers should know about the newest phishing trends and methods.
2. Underline the importance of creating robust and distinct passwords
In a study carried out in 2023, it was found out that 38% of adult Americans had their passwords hacked. These figures keep increasing because of artificial intelligence technology which makes it possible to hack passwords that are 12 digits long in a mere 25 seconds.
Weak passwords affect companies too because 81% of the data breaches occur due to this cause. Good thing, though. This is also a problem that your company can lessen by educating its workers properly.
These include the following:
The use of password managers allows users to create and save passwords in order not to have them written on an Excel sheet. (This is a poor strategy!)
3. Support the best ways to work from home and keep your data safe.
As more and more people work from home on tablets, smartphones, and computers, new threats to data security are appearing. This is especially true if all of those devices are connected to your company’s main network.
To keep the devices of your workers (and, by extension, the data of your business) safe, try:
Train your staff in the most effective methods of working from home while emphasizing the significance of adhering to standards of data privacy, management, and secure disposal. It may be helpful to consider installing some employee monitoring software like Controlio that would allow you to monitor the actions of your employees in relation to the work done on their computer while they work from home.
Putting security software on all of them. Malware like viruses, worms, trojans, and ransomware won’t be able to get on your employees’ work computers and smartphones, which could put your business’s network at risk.
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) should be encouraged, especially if your workers will be using public Wi-Fi networks while they work from home. These encrypt the internet traffic of your staff so that nosy people can’t see it.
4. Security, training for employees, and the personal touch
Because there are so many risks on the internet now, cybersecurity is more important than ever. But we also live in a time when cybersecurity is becoming more like artificial intelligence. That is due to the increasing capabilities of the AI system that is becoming faster and better. It is also easy to ignore the people caught in between.
However, that will be the worst thing to do, especially now that people are the best defence that any organization has when it comes to cybercrime prevention in an organization.
Do not allow your people, your workers, to do what they must do without giving them anything they need to know about phishing, password hacking, and device targeting.
Train your people on how to identify and deal with this type of cybercrime before they even get a chance to cause damage to your organization. Your people will then feel respected and confident in doing what they need to do.
Everyone wins!
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