Safe Cyber Behaviour Training Ensures Your Staff are a Key Part of Your Internet Security Strategy

It’s essential to train your staff to spot potential cyber threats and tread carefully online. This ensures they’re part of your business’ internet security solution, rather than part of the problem. IT support Perth company TechBrain can help.

It’s easy to be afraid of high-tech internet security exploits. However, most cyber threats are designed to take advantage of human weakness. For example, they can trick someone in your organisation into opening an infected attachment. They can trick them into opening a malicious link or revealing sensitive information. Your staff are often your last line of defence. It’s important to invest in Safe Cyber Behaviour Training alongside your other internet security countermeasures.

Explain the consequences

The first step is to ensure your people are aware of the full potential impact an internet security breach can have on your business.

The fallout from a security incident typically goes far beyond a brief interruption. It’s not just about removing a pesky virus from a single desktop PC. Modern threats are designed to spread through an organisation quickly. They can lock down key data and disable mission critical systems. They can bring the business to its knees. At this point, data recovery becomes essential.

The impact of data recovery costs and lost productivity during data recovery efforts can be substantial. However, long-term damage to the reputation of the business can also lead to lost customers. Australia will introduce mandatory data breach reporting in 2018. If an incident impacts the privacy of customers, it must be reported to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Encourage them to think twice

The best weapon against most internet security threats is a healthy sense of paranoia. Encourage your people to question the legitimacy of seemingly innocuous communications. When in doubt, err on the side of caution.

Originally, online scams and other incoming threats encouraged people to take the bait by offering deals that seemed too good to be true. It could be anything from winning a foreign lottery to securing a share of stolen gold. However, today’s scams succeed by looking too mundane to be false. For example, they could masquerade as bogus invoices and purchase orders. Other times, they could claim to be notifications for an uncollected parcel, unpaid power bill or unclaimed tax return. Opening the attachment or clicking the link could unleash ransomware or expose sensitive information such as logins and passwords.

Put policies in place

Telltale signs such as conflicting sender details and poor grammar can help staff spot these bulk phishing attempts. However, personalised “spear phishing” attacks are much more difficult to spot.

These emails can sometimes appear to come from within the business. They could take the form of an unexpected urgent request from senior staff to transfer funds to an offshore account or hand over sensitive business materials. Hackers break into email servers and wait for the opportune moment to masquerade as senior management. They hope to dupe an unwitting staff member into doing their bidding.

This is where robust internet security policies and procedures can save the day. This can include instructing staff to forward all financial requests to specific staff members trained to spot fakes. It can also include the addition of extra safeguards to ensure requests for money transfers are genuine.

The goal of Safe Cyber Behaviour Training isn’t just to draw attention to internet security threats. It’s also to reinforce the importance of following procedure. Additionally, it can give your staff the confidence to speak up when something seems fishy.

Are you looking for an IT support Perth company that can help make your business safe? Contact TechBrain today for all your IT support needs!