Your company stands about a 30% chance of experiencing a data breach on any given day. But it’s not your IT cybersecurity team that are on the front lines; it’s your employees. 91% of hacker events start with a phishing email. Who gets these emails? Your employees. One wrong click and your business is in trouble. That’s exactly why it’s so critical to create a culture of cybersecurity in your organization. Creating a more cyber-aware workforce takes effort—and it’s better than a data breach. 

Employee Behavior and Cyber Risk 

Entrepreneur says there are five basic behaviors your employees are probably doing right now that can create risk. They include: 

• Being indifferent towards cybersecurity. They may feel your odds of becoming a cybersecurity victim are slim. Or “the IT team handles that.” But 14 million of 28 million U.S. businesses were hacked last year.  

• Failing to use two-factor authentication on their email. This means anyone that can login to email can use it—including hackers. Hacks on email accounts are the fastest growing cybercrime today. Two-factor verification sends a code to your employee’s cell phone, making it like a key to your email account. 
• Clicking fake phishing emails. Hackers are increasingly sophisticated, sending emails that look just like your bank on the surface. Once you click, malware is unleashed or the hacker steals login information. We’ve even seen emails that look like they’re coming from the company you work for.  
• Selecting really bad passwords, like 123456. (This happens—a lot.) Then people reuse the same bad password across all of their accounts. It’s a goldmine for hackers.  
• Remote employees that fail to run backups is a serious problem now. Backing up your computer is the only true defense against ransomware software that locks down your computer until you pay the hacker a ransom. 

Here’s some good news: You can fix all of these things. Your employees can, in effect, join your cybersecurity team in deploying best practices that will keep your data safe. What can you do right now to improve your cybersecurity footprint with your employees? 

How To Create a Culture of Cybersecurity? 

You can help your employees improve their cybersecurity posture by providing them with consistent and ongoing training on the constantly evolving threats to your data. Cybersecurity training should be a part of orientation, but regular updates will ensure that it’s never “out of sight out of mind” for your workforce.

Dice says, “You may have every security solution that exists, but you’ll never be completely secure if you don’t train your personnel in cyber hygiene and awareness.” 

Develop trainings and testing to teach your workforce about phishing emails. Plan to repeat these trainings and add to them throughout the year. Require two-factor authentication on all devices, including personal devices if they are used for work. Set up special protocols or your remote workforce. Create the idea that cybersecurity is everyone’s business. Then reinforce it repeatedly for top-of-mind awareness.  

Another way you can protect your business is to ensure you have the best cybersecurity team on staff. That’s where Prosum can help. We match top IT talent to businesses to help them meet their hiring goals. We can help you, too. Call on us today.