Employees are a company's weakest link when it comes to cybersecurity. A certain amount of employee negligence, which is when an employee is unaware of how his/her careless actions leave a company vulnerable to attack, is unavoidable but those risks can be mitigated.
Some reports claim that malicious insiders account for 27% of all cybercrime. Recruiting insiders is increasing, and the dark web is one of the best ways for them to solicit such services. The cybercriminals who hire such individuals are looking for new ways to steal data and install malware. Having someone on your team who already knows all of the passwords is much easier than using brute force.
Employee negligence is easy to deal with. You have to train them on how to avoid phishing links, how to set up proper passwords and the dangers of using public Wi-Fi. This will arm the employees with all of the tools that they need to keep themselves and the company data safe.
Training is key.
Unfortunately, those training techniques will do little to deter a disgruntled employee with bad motives or malicious employees who got positions in the company specifically so that they can steal sensitive information. In such cases, the businesses will have to implement security systems that are designed to protect them from their own employees.
These security systems are designed to spot vulnerabilities in an employee's work procedures. They flag internal users who accidentally expose their companies to malware and any instances where employees are attempting to access files that they have no valid reason to be requesting. The downside to using these implementations is that they are expensive and small businesses may not be able to afford them.
Implement a Cyber Security Policy
If the company decides to implement such security protocols, they should be fine-tuned to look for particular violations. These protocols include deterrence controls such as data encryption, detection controls such as log management and termination controls which immediately deny access to terminated employees.
No company should consider itself too small to worry about protecting itself from hackers. Some reports claim that 98% of all existing companies have experienced a cyber attack and some companies are targeted up to 11 times per day. 40% of those companies lack the necessary controls to prevent such attacks from happening.
