Employees may pose a serious risk to companies worldwide, since there seems to be a continual risk of online data breaches, cyberattacks, or phishing emails.
According to The Cyber Resilience Centre for Wales (WCRC), employees are the weakest link in an organisation when it comes to cybercrime and will be a main target for criminals in 2023 through more aggressive phishing attacks.
Your office employees can be a serious risk to company security, even though you might not realise it. Employees may cause havoc when it comes to data security, networks, and programmes, even if most of the time it’s completely unintentional.
WCRC, which launched around two years ago, and has over 1,000 members, is making its most ambitious prediction for the upcoming year. Raising corporate awareness is essential, according to the organisation’s director, Detective Superintendent Paul Peters, to minimise the risk that an attack might be successful.
Paul Peters continued, saying:
“Our members and partners we are speaking are all seeing an increase the number of sophisticated attacks in particular phishing attacks. Phishing is where the attacker uses a form of communication, such as an email, and represents themselves as a reputable organization, to induce individuals to reveal personal information which can lead to account compromise, data breaches and malware infection. And this of course relies on the victim being unsuspecting of such an attack, so this is where being armed with the right knowledge and awareness is critical to keeping these risks at bay.”
Experts claim phishing scams were the starting point of all targeted attacks. These are emails that criminals send to employees that appear to have come from a reputable business and request sensitive data. The biggest security risk in 2023 will be phishing.
Employees are the weakest link in the chain
The biggest weakness in a company’s security is purportedly its employees. Employees who use either personal or work-related devices on an insecure network might not be aware of the risks involved. The free Wi-Fi at the area café or the subway to a business meeting might be examples of this.
Employees should never print off or keep sensitive private or business information on USBs, external drives, or even paper to carry outside the office.
It is simple for the bad guys to get their hands on this data. Consider Heathrow Airport, which paid a punishment of £120,000 for a data breach caused by the loss of a USB drive holding personal data. Luckily, it wasn’t misused. Nevertheless, this is a perfect illustration of how simple it is to lose data, and it can be avoided.
Additionally, ransomware doesn’t seem to be slowing down and will continue to pose a serious danger. Attackers are increasingly stealing data and encrypting it to put more pressure on victims to pay the ransom.
On the plus side, more companies are starting to understand the value of supply chain cyber security, and this trend is only expected to grow in the coming months as more supply chain attacks are expected.
With the proper training, you can lower the danger of being a victim of cybercrime even though your staff could be a security concern. It’s important to assess your company, identify any weak areas, and let everyone on staff know what the best procedures are.
Help your colleagues keep a security-first mindset and boost your human firewall by starting your Phishing Tackle security awareness training today with our two-week free trial.
