Did You Know Realized Solutions Has a Cybersecurity Awareness Training Service?
As businesses invest in software, hardware, and services to help prevent cyberattacks, it’s important to invest in cybersecurity awareness training for your staff.
When it comes to cybersecurity, an organization is only as strong as the weakest link. The weakest link in any organization is the end-user, your employees. As businesses invest in software, hardware, and services to help prevent cyberattacks, it’s important to invest in cybersecurity awareness training for your staff.
Any business of any size, in any location, can experience a cyberattack. Obviously, cybersecurity has become the lead conversation as organizations increase their efforts to protect their data and information from falling victim to a cyberattack. However, one area often overlooked that needs more focus on security measures is your staff.
Why Businesses Need Cybersecurity Awareness Training
Cybercriminals continue to increase their efforts as technology evolves. For hackers, the best way to breach a network and obtain sensitive data is through untrained, non-technical staff members. Studies have found that employee mistakes cause a majority of data breaches.
Attackers use popular techniques such as email phishing and spear phishing to trick employees into giving up sensitive information, which could lead to damaging ransomware attacks and more.
Phishing and Spear Phishing Examples
Brenda the Bookkeeper opened an email from her company’s banking institution. The email warned her of suspicious activity on her corporate account and requested that she sign in. But Brenda did not know the email was a phishing scam. It had the bank’s logo and financial jargon which tricked Brenda into clicking on the link in which she then entered her login credentials.
Once the hackers obtained personal information and account data, they created new user credentials and installed malware to steal sensitive data. Unfortunately, Brenda’s mistake cost the company $100,000 and for Brenda, her job. If Brenda knew how to identify several components in that email, she would have known it was a scam.
In another example, Frank the Financial Analyst received an email from his boss, William, the CEO. In the email, William stated that he was abroad on business and his phone, wallet, and briefcase were stolen. William asked Frank to wire $5,000 from the corporate account. Frank, then of course, wired the money to William. Frank did not know that he just fell victim to a spear-phishing scam.
If Frank knew how to spot potential spear phishing emails, he could have deleted that email without costing the company money. Furthermore, if Frank knew what to do to prove that email actually came from William, he could have saved time, money, and most likely William’s faith in him.
If your staff is properly trained to identify risks, your company’s data won’t be in jeopardy. Cybersecurity awareness training educates your employees on improving risky behaviors that can lead to security compromises.
Password and Smart Device Breaches
Sandy the Salesperson uses multiple platforms and has many business and personal accounts with different vendors, customers, and within her company. Sandy is usually very busy, so she used the same password for every single account, forgetting to change and update them.
Sandy, unfortunately, learned the dangers of reusing passwords the hard way. Her password was compromised. Hackers were able to access all of her accounts and information. Hackers were able to obtain her customer’s sensitive data as well. Customers no longer trusted Sandy and the company she worked for, causing brand and reputation damage which ultimately affected ROI and future business.
In another example, Charlie, the CEO of a successful company, started working remotely and purchased some new smart home devices. Charlie did not change the default credentials on his new devices. Failing to recognize the risks of his new device allowed hackers to hijack one of his devices.
Charlie did not know the device was hijacked because there was no change to the device. However, hijacking became a serious issue for his home network security because once that device was compromised, the hackers were able to access other devices as well, including thousands of files and sensitive data.
When employees are trained to recognize risks, your organization adds an extra level of security. You will have more people, other than your IT department or IT partner, keeping an eye out for the security of your business. All staff members with training become human firewalls. They will be able to report any threats and will ensure that your information stays safe and secure.
Realized Solutions Cybersecurity Awareness Training Service
Protecting a business network from threats is one of our primary objectives. We will help you identify the potential risks and shield your network from them. We aim to minimize security loopholes that malicious individuals, both external and internal to your network, can take advantage of, and work to secure the data that’s essential to your business.
Security is paramount which is why Realized Solutions has a cybersecurity awareness training service available for your entire staff, including remote workers and in-house employees.
Our experts will assess the vulnerabilities of your employees and we will assign a security score to each of them. We will be able to identify which employee has the weakest score and which employee poses the highest risk which will likely cause a data breach. We will train your employees on identifying components and recognizing risks before a breach occurs.
Having the right cybersecurity measures in place will ensure that your data and information will be safe and secure from cybercriminals and costly cyberattacks. Investing in the security of your network and infrastructure is very important and investing in the cybersecurity awareness training of your employees is equally as important.
Realized Solutions is here to help you take your weakest link, your employees, and make them your strongest defense. We will safeguard your data and train your employees to be an extra layer of security for your organization. Let’s get your staff trained right away. For more information, or to set up cybersecurity awareness training, call us at (860) 410-0670 or send an email over to [email protected].
