Key Takeaways:
- Employee Training is Essential: Cybersecurity awareness training is crucial for all employees, as they often are the weakest link in security. This training helps prevent breaches caused by human error.
- Awareness of Common Threats: Employees should be trained to recognize various cybersecurity threats like phishing, malware, and ransomware, which are increasingly sophisticated and difficult to detect.
- Preparedness for Incidents: It’s vital for employees to know the correct steps to take immediately after a security incident to minimize damage and prevent the spread of malicious software.
Cybersecurity threats are everywhere, and one of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming your company is simply too small to be hit. In reality, as a small business, you’re a more likely target than the giant corporations. Sure, it makes national headlines when Target or Home Depot have a data breach, but that’s due to the size and the number of consumers impacted. A small business like yours won’t turn heads. In fact, cybercriminals are usually more interested in a quick smash and grab of Internet-based data than attempting to hack through the security of a major company. That puts your business in the crosshairs.
Thankfully, as long as you do what you can to protect your company, most online criminals will test your security, find it is intact, and then move on to the next target. However, with all of that said, your Internet security is only as strong as the weakest link, which is absolutely why you need to conduct cybersecurity awareness training for employees.
Do You Really Need Cyber Security Awareness Training For Your Employees?
As a business owner, you’ve probably discovered you can never assume any one individual knows something you consider to be common knowledge. This includes Internet security. You might believe all of your employees know what to do and what not to do when it comes to keeping your business safe, but, realistically, you can’t assume anything. Far too many business owners fall into this trap because the vast majority of security breaches don’t come from someone sneaking under the company’s firewall. It comes from an employee willingly allowing the cybercriminal in by opening a corrupt email or bad link.
This one simple mistake exposes the financial information of your business and your customers. Depending on how severe it is, the mistake may end up putting you out of business. So while you have proven you take cybersecurity seriously by reading this blog, you need your employees to take it just as seriously. The best way to do this is to conduct cybersecurity awareness training for employees.
What Should You Train Your Team Members To Look Out For?
There are so many forms of online cybersecurity threats; it’s enough to make your head spin. But that is one of the reasons why you absolutely need to take advantage of security awareness training.
Phishing scams you’ve probably heard of before, and many of these come in the form of fraudulent emails. Basically, these trick individuals into clicking on bad emails that are infected. Even if your business does not allow external email access, it doesn’t mean business email accounts won’t receive these messages.
Malware and ransomware are other forms of Internet security risks. Malware might cause your system to crash as it eats up space and blocks access to important files while ransomware will wrap itself around your network and prevent you from doing anything before you pay for a passcode that removes the infected files (don’t ever pay for the ransomware passcode as other files have likely been infected, which will just launch another ransomware and continue in a never-ending cycle).
Whaling, baiting, business email compromise, water hole attacks, and all other kinds of sneaky ways of attacking your business and its network are out there. With so many threats, both you and your employees need to make sure you are protected and safeguarding the business.
Review Examples and Hold Demonstrations
Even if all your employees know better than to open certain emails and click on certain links, cybercriminals are getting more and more sneaky with how they go about camouflaging what they are doing. In fact, there are some emails and pop-ups that look almost perfect. You yourself may have experienced the “Flash Update” pop-up before. It sure looks like something your computer would tell you to do, but then when you click on it, the entire computer goes into a tailspin. This is just one example. There are hundreds more. The best way to protect your business and to make sure your employees know what to look for. With cybersecurity awareness training will help educate your employees on what to look out for and what is going on in the world of malware, sleuthing, and other forms of spyware.
Know What To Do If An Incident Occurs
Mistakes do happen. You can have the most educated staff in the world, but this doesn’t stop mistakes from sneaking in. Should an issue arise, it is important for your employees to know what to do. As is the case with fire, what you do immediately after the fire starts will make or break the outcome. If you work quickly, you can qualm the spread of the virus and prevent it from spreading throughout the rest of the company’s network.
You need to have security protocols in place, and your employees should know what to do when they have identified a virus, or they know their computer is being attacked. They might be able to limit the infection to just one desktop without the malware moving through the rest of the network. By going over this information during the cybersecurity awareness training program, your employees will help prevent a bad situation from getting worse.
Schedule Your Cyber Security Awareness Training for Employees Today
When it comes to protecting your business, Charlotte IT Solutions is here for you. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in operation, the size of your company, or the products and services you offer, we are here for you. So, whether you want to schedule cybersecurity awareness training for your employees or you’re interested in one of the other services we offer, now is the perfect time to give us a call or send us an email. It is more important now than ever before to have a well oiled, Internet-based company. Because while you don’t know what the future holds, you can prepare for it. Do exactly that with our team at Charlotte IT Solutions.