According to IBM’s 2020 Cost of Data Breach Report, human error causes nearly 25 percent of data breaches, meaning that a negligent employee can become a tangible threat to your business’ invaluable data.
Your business’ security program must start with your employees and strong security policies rather than entirely depending on your IT team or the latest security solutions. You can significantly reduce the likelihood of a data breach by combining a well-drafted cybersecurity policy with comprehensive security awareness training.
The only way to prevent your employees from compromising your business data is by providing regular security awareness training. Conducting a one-time training program will not suffice amid today’s ever-changing threat landscape.
Cybercriminals are waiting to exploit your business’ vulnerabilities, one of which could be your employees. There are multiple ways your negligent employees could jeopardize the security, integrity, or accessibility of your business data, including:
Password Reuse
Reusing the same password for multiple accounts is a very common bad password habit utilized by careless employees. Unaware of the security consequences, the average user uses the same password across an average of five account logins, both personal and business, according to Ponemon research.
Accidental Sharing and Exposure
A moment of carelessness can lead to an employee sending data to a cybercriminal. This can have serious ramifications and lead to your sensitive business data ending up in the wrong hands.
Falling for Phishing Scams
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, phishing attacks have gone up by over 60 percent. An untrained employee may find it difficult to detect these deceiving scams, which can lead to the leakage of sensitive business information.
You must intentionally develop a security-focused culture within your organization through comprehensive and continual security training if you wish to avoid or mitigate unplanned downtime or disruptions due to data loss incidents. Employees consistently exposed to security training are more likely to follow cybersecurity best practices, thereby ensuring your business data is not left in the lurch.
Implementing security awareness training is just as important to preventing data loss incidents as having a robust backup strategy. Backups can help you recover mission-critical data quickly in the event of data loss or corruption event that may impact your business and could save your business from losing crucial revenue or clients. In addition to safeguarding crucial business data, a robust backup can also ensure that:
- You have access to complete copies of your business’ data assets in one place
- You can significantly reduce business downtime following a data loss incident
- The overall confidence in your business increases among customers and partners
An effective backup strategy is characterized by multi-layered mediums and failover options, proper policy and procedure development, regular testing, and the implementation of comprehensive and consistent security awareness training.
Regular Training Limits the Need to Excessively Depend on Backups
Cybercriminals are experts at exploiting global events to scam people and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic gave hackers a golden opportunity to exploit the loopholes left unaddressed by companies adopting the remote work model.
With incidents of phishing and ransomware attacks going through the roof, security awareness training is more relevant now than ever before. By mitigating the human errors and mistakes that often factor into many data loss or corruption incidents, you can dramatically minimize costs and consequences that could impact your business’ success.
During the pandemic in 2020, 56 percent of businesses recovered their data using backups after a ransomware attack. Many of these businesses could have avoided the damages inflicted by these attacks if they effectively trained their employees on how to spot common warning signs of cyberthreats such as ransomware scams.
Deploying a data protection strategy that incorporates both backups and security awareness training will help your business counter data loss effectively.
Incorporate Your Employees into Your Backup Strategy
With cyber threats becoming increasingly prevalent and malicious, you must take any measure possible to protect your business and its mission-critical data.
Building and implementing the right strategy for both backups and security awareness training can be easier with the right partner. We can help you implement a comprehensive data protection plan that incorporates employee training and data backup solutions that will enable your business to avoid data loss events that can jeopardize your business’ future.
Why Backups and Security Awareness Training Matter
Backups can be a lifesaver for your business by protecting your valuable business data from being deleted or altered by malicious cybercriminals. Although the pandemic acted as a catalyst for backup adoption, only 41 percent of businesses back up their data at least once a day. That is not a very healthy practice, and you must make sure proper policy development, regular testing, and continual reviews fuel your backup strategy.
Other than protecting your sensitive data, backups can help reduce severe downtime, improve your business’ reputation and act as a single access point for your entire database. Even if you have all your backups in order, a negligent employee can still be a threat to your business data. In 2020, the San Jose Federal Court convicted an employee from a global MNC for carelessly deleting business-sensitive data. Thus, the only way to tackle the factor of human error is through regular security awareness training.
Always bear in mind that backups and security awareness training are equally important when it comes to your business successfully warding off cyberattacks that can result in downtime, data loss, and more. Selecting one over the other can dilute your business’ counter-threat strategy. Undoubtedly, by meticulously implementing a robust backup and regular security awareness training, your business can deal with harsh times like the current pandemic as well as cyber threats that exploit such difficult periods. If there’s one lesson the pandemic has taught businesses, it’s that it’s better to be safe than sorry. The business world is at a critical juncture and your proactive approach can make or break your business’ future. While a world without cybercriminals would be great, such a utopian world unfortunately does not exist. The only way forward is through the smart implementation of the best strategies to protect your business data, processes, systems, and people. And for that, you must empower your business by integrating backups and comprehensive security awareness training.