In all areas of life, we know that anticipating a threat (and taking steps to guard against it) is preferable to simply trying to fight against it after it catches you off guard. So for business owners concerned about their network security, it makes sense to identify potential threats.
What would you consider the biggest threat to your network security? If we posed this question to a room full of business managers, it’s likely that they would blurt out the following responses: Hackers! Viruses! Malware! Not backing up your files!
Yes, all of those things are serious security threats. But the biggest threat of all might surprise you: It’s your employees.
We’re not suggesting that you’ve unwittingly hired a team of nefarious criminals. Theoretically, that can certainly happen, but mistakes occur as well. It is quite common for untrained employees to accidentally open up a figurative Pandora’s Box of cyber threats, that can invade the company network, infect multiple computers, and compromise security.
Whether on purpose or accidental, 67 percent of organizations have experienced a security breach or data theft that originated from someone within the company.* Even worse, those incidents are expected to increase by 62 percent in the coming year.
Obviously, you need employees. So how do you mitigate the cyber risk that they can pose to your company?
Understand your data. Many company managers aren’t even aware of how potentially damaging their own data can be. To be truly data aware, you should seek to understand which files contain critically sensitive information (such as customer Social Security or credit card numbers). This data should be encrypted, and reached only by employees whose job responsibilities necessitate access.
Track user behavior. It’s hard to believe that an employee would steal data, but it happens much more often than you probably believe. Tracking behavior helps you to identify whether an employee is accessing files that they shouldn’t need to complete job tasks, is moving files unnecessarily in the system, or is otherwise exhibiting suspicious behavior. Often these threats can be identified before an actual data theft occurs.
Training. Infections and data breaches can be accidental. All employees should be trained on safe network usage.
We can help you identify potential threats within your network, train employees on careful internet usage, and protect sensitive data. Give us a call at 888-RING-MY-TECH for more information on network security for your business.
*Source: Data Gravity
