The last thing your organization wants is to be a victim to a cybersecurity breach. Did you know that one employee who is uneducated or undereducated about cybersecurity can cause a catastrophic breach that could end up effecting your entire corporation? Hackers are getting smarter by the day and we are seeing news stories break regularly detailing how another organization has fallen victim. While there is no way to 100% guarantee that your organization will not be the next victim, educated your employees is one way to lessen your chances greatly.
Now is the time to make cybersecurity a priority within your organization. Any company whether big or small, can feel the repercussions of a breach and the consequences can be grave. To help combat the overwhelming concerns of a cybersecurity breach, we have put together a list of a few ways that you can ensure your employees are prepared and protected from cybersecurity threats.
1. Make Cybersecurity Training a Part of the On-Boarding Process
What better way to make sure your employees are prepared for criminals cybersecurity hacking attempts than by including cybersecurity training into your on-boarding process. Set aside a couple of hours of your on-boarding time dedicated to cybersecurity training and run them through a program that teaches them what threats look like and how to safely avoid becoming a victim.
During this time be sure to discuss:
Cybersecurity threats that are prevalent
Security procedures that your company has in place to avoid being a victim
What to do if an employee thinks they may have involuntarily fallen victim to a cybersecurity scheme.
One way to train on-boarding employees is by using our free Security Awareness Training Program. This 1.5 hour program includes a 4 part video series as well as a quiz at the end. If the quiz is passed the employee will receive a Security Awareness Certificate.
2. Keep Cybersecurity Top of Mind
We all have many tasks to keep track of at work and the day-to-day procedures can make cybersecurity fall to the back of employees minds. An employee who is not cognizant of what to look out for when it comes to security breaches, is an employee who often will fall victim. To ensure that your employees are prepared make sure to regularly discuss cybersecurity and send regular emails, reminders, and discuss the risks at important business meetings to make cybersecurity top of mind. You may feel like you're being redundant, but with the large risks of a cybersecurity breach, you can never be too safe.
One way to keep employees updated is by sharing regular security updates with them. You can encourage employees to sign up for our security updates where they will receive emails detailing current cybersecurity threats and reminders on how to avoid being a victim or have them follow Mapletronics on twitter or other social media sites to get a real time view of what is happening in cybersecurity and our recommendations to stay safe.
3. Use a Phishing Tool to Test Employees Knowledge and Prevent Real Hacks
Now that your employees have the basic knowledge of avoiding cybersecurity schemes, it's time to test their skillset. You will never know your weaknesses in employee cybersecurity awareness if you do not have effective testing measures in place. We recommend using a tool that will phish your users for you without them knowing and give you updated reports on who is clicking and responding and also give you resources to educate these employees to stop making these mistakes.
A phishing testing service will give you valuable insight on what types of schemes your employees are more likely to accidentally be a part of and where you are in terms of cybersecurity education within your organization. If you'd like to start a free phishing quiz on your users, we'd be glad to help you get set up.
4. Create and enforce a strict cybersecurity policy for your company
Policies are important for many aspects of a business. This is true for cybersecurity within your organization. In order to protect your organization you need to make sure that every single one of your employees that has access to a computer or mobile device knows how to properly respond to security risks and how to avoid being a cybersecurity hacking victim.
We recommend you create a detailed policy that includes:
Password instructions and guidelines that must be followed
Email security that makes it harder for criminals to get access to your employees
Education requirements that require all of your users to earn their cyber security awareness certifications
Regular phishing and cybersecurity testing to find weaknesses within your organization
Communication guidelines that protect users from communicating to untrustworthy sources
Firewall settings that ban access to website that may not be safe
Have questions? We can help. Contact us today.