Many active ransomware attacks share a common feature: an approved user does something they shouldn’t do, such as opening a phishing email or clicking on a malicious connection. Then why aren’t organizations concentrating on cybersecurity and end-user training as a first-line approach?
Cybersecurity and the End User Training
Measurable user error costs
According to the Ponemon Institute 2020 study, the average global cost of insider threats increased by 31% in just two years. The number of incidents increased by 47% in that span, a statistic that only illustrates the issue’s increasing seriousness. There are many highlights here:
- Containment is correlated with the highest cost of an event, averaging $211,533 per company globally.
- Investigations are the fastest-growing cost, which in just three years has increased by 86%.
- The longer it takes to avert an occurrence, the more costly it becomes. It costs an average of $13.71 million annually for accidents that last more than 90 days.
IT experts agree that user education should play a more central role in the planning of cybersecurity. For many businesses, there is still a significant deficit in this area. According to a 2017 survey of 187 professionals in cybersecurity published in BetaNews:
- 92% agree that the industry focuses more on protecting against external threats than on internal ones.
- Almost half feel that the most underestimated risk of cybersecurity today is uneducated users and insider threats.
- 91% think that senior management is not making the proper security and spending decisions.
Cybersecurity and End User Training
Users can be the weakest link in your business or the first line of defence. How well they play; this position depends on your organization’s willingness to invest in safety awareness training and facilitate end-user training through institutional technology and processes.
You should engage your users through exercises to deliver successful security for your network. Simulated attacks, such as sending out fake phishing emails to help workers identify threats, are one way to do this. Cybersecurity training courses may also be required to provide workers with the most current knowledge about attack vectors.
A combined solution is highly recommended, such as the one KnowBe4 provides. The integrated platform offers hours of content for security awareness training, phishing models, and reporting results, all in one location.
There are a variety of helpful tools you can choose from to maximize cyber protection for user education in a way that suits the needs of your company:
- To deliver practical online security training in just three minutes a month, Mimecast leverages humour and bite-sized learning.
- SANS provides more than 60 immersion-style courses in nine subject areas and is widely recognized as the world’s largest source of instruction, testing, and certification for cybersecurity.
Suggested computer-based End-User training programs
- Barracuda Networks PhishLine
- Cofense (PhishMe)
- HoxHunt
- Lucy
- PhishLabs
- Proofpoint (formerly Wombat)
- Securementum
- Webroot (OpenText)
How do you choose the company’s best program? In line with your company-level cybersecurity plan, you can select a training program. That means deciding the reach, cost, and customization of any given program to meet your business’s unique needs. These main features include the best team member training programs:
- Attacks simulated. You’ll want to find a forum that teaches not only critical cyber practices but also enables workers to respond to simulated attacks.
- Reporting. These programs provide benchmarks and goal setting to help you evaluate your progress and thus display the ROI of the training for your company.
- Response to the incident. In addition to training, some systems implement incident management functionality so that users learn to quickly and effectively monitor attacks.
Conclusion
Given that team member knowledge can stop so many ransomware assaults, it seems negligent not to integrate user education into your cyber protection strategy. You could still become a victim, even though your organization doesn’t store confidential information. In return for restored access to company information, hackers can keep networks hostage or demand payment, and the costs of persisting through such attacks will reach astronomical heights. Not to mention that the repercussions of a single assault often stretch over several years and may even cause a company to go out of business.
We invite you to download our free whitepaper: “The Six-Step Guide to Becoming Your Clients’ Cyber Expert” if you are a broker and would like to know more about how you can help your clients secure their futures from the threat of a cyber-attack.
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