In today’s world of technological advancement, cyber-attacks are no longer something that organisations have the luxury to simply disregard. With cyber-attacks constantly growing and new attacks being circulated, it is imperative to increase cybersecurity awareness organisation wide.

Is simply setting up firewalls and security software in place enough to ensure that your organisation’s data is protected and secured at all times? Surely, it is definitely part of the protection to ensure your organisation’s data is secure at organisational level but, are you also confident that it is enough to protect and secure your data at micro levels?  

As networks become harder to breach, cybercriminals are switching to targeting employees, which is now one of the most common entry points for cyber-attacks. Based on statistics from the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) 2019, out of the various actions used for cyber-attacks, 33% included social attacks while 28% involved malware. These two methods alone weigh more than 50%, showing how attacks nowadays are being directed to a different target. 

As humans, employees make mistakes, which can potentially result in hefty costs for the organisation. They easily fall victim to fraudsters posing as high-ranking personnel or share confidential files by mistake, and are vulnerable to many other tricks cyber attackers use to gain access to confidential organisation data. Without cybersecurity awareness ingrained into employees, they would not be able to recognise the security threat, lest be expected to avoid, report or remove it. 

Through cybersecurity awareness training, employees will then be able to spot and prevent security breaches while you are putting in place the backend protection solutions in your IT environment. Yet again, even you have all the protection in place, without educating your people in the organisation, all efforts might go to waste with only a few clicks.

Hence, to achieve a fully protected security system in an organisation, it is necessary to have cybersecurity awareness trickling down the entire organisation. Employees have to be able to identify cyber threats and be ready to protect themselves and the organisation against cyber-attacks. By instilling cybersecurity awareness in your employees, you are strengthening the human firewall in your organisation, strengthening the security system wholly.  

Here are some practices you should exercise in your organisation to ensure your data is protected and secured at all times:

Be Aware

First and foremost, ensure that all your employees including yourself, are up to date and aware of the latest cybersecurity risks out there.

Monitor

Use a software that can help you monitor/audit the user behaviour, ensuring that you will always know who your confidential data is being shared to. 

Extra Layer of Security

Make sure to implement an extra layer of security measures such as 2FA, OTP, complex passwords policy or confidential file policies.

Encryption

To protect sensitive information, ensure that your data is encrypted in transit and at rest.  

Antivirus

Emphasis has to be placed on the importance of using antivirus software to scan both incoming and outgoing files to and from the organisation.

Backup

A cyber-attack may wipe out some or all of your organisations’ data. Make sure that your data is always backed up to prevent data loss.

Cybersecurity Guideline & Activities

Draft a cybersecurity practise guideline for all employees to help them identify the threats and realise the vulnerabilities. Implement talks and trainings on cybersecurity awareness and countermeasures.  

To summarise, it is as important as to have a strong software security in your organisation, as to build a strong human firewall. Employees play an important role in growing, sustaining and protecting an organisation and it is crucial that everyone is aware of the role they play in achieving a successful cybersecurity strategy.  

With EasiShare, a data security platform that is recognised by government agencies and enterprises, you can allow your employees to share files securely and easily and still have 100% control over your data. Add policies in a group or user level, promote usage of OTPs or 2FAs for the authenticating of identities, set an expiry time on files shared out, track user behaviour in a very user-friendly way and much more. Contact us to discuss how we can fit into your successful cybersecurity strategy and how we can help you along the way and ease your processes.