We can all agree that protecting your business and employees from data breaches is important. But is company-wide cybersecurity training necessary? Some businesses have periodic training courses along with phishing tests. Others send out a friendly reminder to employees to “be careful not to open suspicious emails”. What is enough?
The Importance of Identifying a Scammer
The probability of an employee opening a malicious email may be directly related to the amount of training they received. Let’s say your company has the friendly reminder approach with employees. Here is what happens when an employee clicks on a ransomware link:
- Hopefully, your anti-virus and firewall has up-to-date patching to HELP prevent an attack
- However, just clicking the link is enough to activate the sequence for the attack and many times a firewall and anti-virus cannot help you after that action
- After that, the characteristics of the specific malware will start to deploy in your system – however, you may not notice, and the virus does not always execute immediately
- You may feel forced to pay a ransom. The government may punish organizations who pay the ransom after a ransomware attack
Beyond ransomware, scammers are using other tactics to gain valuable information through phishing and spear-phishing attempts. By posing as a colleague, manager or other credible source, employees could be conned into:
- Wiring an ACH payment
- Using a personal or company card to buy a gift card or other unsuspecting errand
- Providing their password
Invest in the training of your human firewall. A traditional firewall cannot do it alone. Even with the best laid cybersecurity safeguards in place including backups, firewalls and software patches, it takes one click by an unknowing employee to cost your business a lot of time, money and important data.
How to Train Employees on Cybersecurity Best Practices
Now that we know the importance of cybersecurity training for employees, how can you get started? Anders Technology has cybersecurity advisors that can implement a training program for staff based on their skill level. Maybe they can already identify a suspicious link but could still be fooled by a credible-looking domain. We use a personalized approach to ensure each employee is equipped with the tools to keep themselves and the company safe from scammers.
Anders Technology can help you implement the best cybersecurity practices to protect you and your organization. Contact an Anders advisor to see how we can help you mitigate security risk and defend against a costly cyberattack.
