Business in this day and age has very much becoming about anything, anytime, anywhere. While this means that everything is available to anyone at any time, thanks to the internet, it also means that businesses are now exposed in the way that they weren't a few decades ago.
Reports of corporate cyber attacks both small and large are only increasing, costing billions a year to organisations worldwide. With the rapid rise of these attacks, it is easy to see why all businesses are looking to improve their own cyber security measures, including the deployment of cyber security awareness training. Of course, this isn't as easy as it sounds as cyber criminals can often use many different methods to exploit weaknesses within a company.
With that in mind, let's take a look at some different steps any organisation can take to improve their cyber security.
Deploy Employee Training
One estimation states that as much as 95% of corporate cyber security breaches occur due to human error in the company, with cyber criminals targeting those who they know will be the least knowledgeable about proper security protocols. Even if a company is large enough to have a specialist IT team dedicated to cyber security, it is vital that all employees have at least a basic understanding of the proper security protocols. They should also know how to identify the most common dangers such as phishing emails and suspicious requests for access to sensitive data.
Despite the rampant cyber security threats currently targeting businesses, only 20% of companies in the UK say that they offer cyber security training to their staff, according to a 2018 survey carried in by Portsmouth University in collaboration the UK government. This troubling result highlights just how lacking the current attitude to cyber security is, and that implementing employee training is one step that many organisations must still take to improve their security.
Continued Audits and Assessments
A majority of the cyber attacks targeting corporations can take weeks to detect, if they are ever noticed to begin with. By regularly assessing and auditing your organisation's network and secure systems you can not only spot these attacks sooner, but often be able to stop them altogether before they occur by recognising potential vulnerabilities.
For large corporations whose internal systems operate on an immense scale across multiple locations, it is highly recommended that a team of expert cyber security consultants are regularly contracted in to audit existing internal processes and security measures. Despite these large organisations having an in-house IT team and even security officers, these external audits and assessments can ensure that your business is doing all it can and should to reduce the risk of a cyber attack or security breach.
Remove Dead Services
One mistake that many businesses make is to leave dead service on their systems. Most organisation will switch online services, such as time management software, and often when they do so, they forget to remove the access they granted to these now unused applications.
Cyber criminals can then use these to bypass the security measures you have put in place to protect your company systems. So, once you have finished using a certain service or software package, it is vital that you delete it, any user credentials associated with it, while also removing any system access you have granted to it.