Companies across the world are scrambling to grow their businesses fast.
Take a look at Amazon…
they started off as a bookstore in 1994, the American company expanded its empire and transformed into a virtual everything store, boasting a net revenue of $232.88 billion in 2018.
Whilst they recognise that success is not achieved overnight, scaling an enterprise involves reaching out to potential customers, nurturing relationships with existing clients, offering the best products and services, understanding taxes and regulatory compliance, carrying out with sales and marketing, and employing all available technologies. What most, if not all, fail to recognise is as you expand operations, you are contending with disruptions from new market participants, emerging technologies, and ever-changing physical and online threats.
Cybercrime has, is, and will always be on the rise.
PricewaterhouseCoopers’s (PwC) Global State of Information Security Survey 2018, showed most entities are not exerting enough effort to deal with cyber-attacks.
Over 90% of all cyber-related attacks are caused by human error; particularly, online perpetrators employ social engineering where employees are tricked into providing sensitive data. But only as little as 30% of respondents had an employee security awareness programme in place.
IBM and Ponemon Institute’s Cost of a Data Breach study revealed that the average cost of data breach worldwide is $3.6 million over the last 12 months.
According to Juniper Research, The Future of Cybercrime & Security: Financial and Corporate Threats & Mitigation report, the total global cost of cybercrime is predicted to surpass the $2-million mark in this year alone.
We’re not telling you this to overwhelm you. You can overcome this, but It starts with strengthening the capability of your employees to ensure safe and secure operations for your business.
In this blog post, we’re going to highlight 6 ways you can empower your employees to take on the responsibility of promoting security awareness for your business.
Let’s get started:
1. Nurture a healthy security culture
Before mapping out any strategy on cybersecurity awareness, it is vital to cultivate a healthy security culture in your workplace.
Cybercrimes are committed by people, not computers themselves. A sustainable security culture is deliberate and disruptive, engaging and fun, and rewarding. It should also offer a significant return on investment in the long run.
2. Provide security training for people
Your staff must be educated with cybersecurity because they’re the most susceptible to cyber-attacks
A security training program will equip them with all the vital information and knowledge to help them pinpoint and respond to all forms of online threats.
These training courses will help your business heighten awareness and enhance security compliance, avert phishing emails and other spam messages, raise awareness on cyber threats, and lower the number of data breaches.
3. Implement a security strategy
Developing an effective security strategy will be made possible if your employees already understand cybersecurity and how it can be averted. A comprehensive security blueprint will not only safeguard confidential data but also reduce instances of a data breach and maintain the integrity of your operation.
4. Strengthen your IT security
It pays to implement defensive measures for network security, comprised of policies and practices to prevent and protect your system against any unauthorised or prohibited access into a computer network and network-accessible resources.
Your security protocol should guide your employees on how to access and utilise your IT assets and resources.
We know that the security landscape is constantly changing and evolving; this means that your employees must be given training on a regular basis to keep up to date with the latest in security risks.
It is not the sole responsibility of your company’s security team to promote security awareness. You must instil the concept that security belongs to everyone and that they can protect the business from all types of attacks on your IT infrastructure.
Your management team must engage all departments to make sure you are on the same page when it comes to securing activities in the online sphere.
5. Set a security goal
Each company has its own cybersecurity needs and preferences, but the ultimate goal here is to see a substantial reduction in online attack rates over time.
Boosting your security awareness program is not an easy feat but it’s advisable to set some solid milestones along the way.
6. Incentivise cybersecurity compliance
Your employees should be expected to follow rules and policies on IT security. One way of encouraging security awareness is by rewarding your employees with incentives. This motivates employees to do their job and bolster their performance at work.
It may also help to gamify your security training and security policy compliance to make it more enjoyable and interesting.
Incorporating games in security learning is not complicated and can make a difference in raising the awareness of cybersecurity for your business. The money you will spend rewarding your employees will be far less costly than grappling with a security attack in the future.
Key Takeaways
The long-term success of your security program rests on your willingness and determination to improve cybersecurity for your company. At the end of the day, adopting cybersecurity best practices will help you maintain safety and security within your organisation.
Are you ready to reduce your digital risk today? Why not schedule a call with one of our security experts to get you started
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