Education and Training Are Key
Choosing what Cybersecurity Solutions are best for your small business can be overwhelming.
You start to investigate what you need and quickly realize that security on the net has a whole new language of its own. Terms like phishing, incidents, breaches, and malicious give you goosebumps when you realize the sinister nature of why you need to secure your business – and what it might cost you if you don’t.
According to Statista.com, over 471 million online data records were exposed in 2018 in the United States. A recent IBM survey discovered that the average total cost of a data breach in the U.S. is $3.86 million. We believe that education is key for small businesses, and this is especially relevant in a world where the use of the dark web has increased three-fold in the past couple of years.
Here is what you need to know to get you started – and the starting point you can action today.
Learn a New Language in Minutes
For you to make an informed decision about cybersecurity solutions, there are things you need to know. Let’s look at some important terminology and more facts.
● Data Breach
Data breaches are usually planned. They are a specific attack on your business known as a cyberattack. Targeted directly to your website, databases, or anywhere that you might hold personal data. Statistics show that a cyberattack is attempted every 39 seconds. A breach is a confirmed disclosure of data to an unauthorized party.
The most prolific data breach to date remains that of Yahoo. In 2016, it was discovered that the user information of over one billion account holders had been accessed in 2013.
● Incident
An ‘incident’ is an event that may compromise the confidentiality or integrity of the information you hold, but that is not a confirmed breach. You may experience an incident as an email or a connection request for a web page from your server, for example. It may also show up as a firewall block. Working closely with your security team to ensure incidents do not turn into breaches is essential.
● Data Exposures
Whilst a breach may be part of a planned attack, data exposures are often caused by human error or poor internal cybersecurity. Exposure can occur due to things like weak encryption, software flaws, or even an employee uploading information to the incorrect place.
Making sure your systems are up to date with the latest security and malware protection is essential – but it does not account for human error.
● Phishing
Emails asking someone to click on a link or provide their details are the largest threat to your company. Responsible for 80% of reported security incidents, they are known as phishing emails.
Employees will often ‘click on’ or ‘open’ an email, perhaps not recognizing the potential dangers it may hold. In our article discussing the importance of security awareness training, we remind clients that employees or smaller businesses are most at risk from phishing attacks. It only takes one employee to open a phishing email to compromise your whole system.
Fact: Before you think of phishing as a Nigerian or Eastern European scam, let us share with you that the US is home to 40% of all phishing command and control servers.
What Cybersecurity Solutions Are Essential?
Education and training of your staff is the best way to protect your business from phishing attacks.
“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” – Kofi Annan
Employees need to know how to recognize a phishing scam. Of course, your spam protection will filter out some phishing emails, but not all of them. The reality is that the cybercriminals behind these are very inventive. They are specialists at finding new ways to entice people to ‘click’ where they want, a psychology technique known as ‘social engineering’.
One click and within seconds your system will become infected by worms, ransomeware, and spyware to steal your data. More jargon, but we will save the explanation for another time. What you need to know is that they are considered malware and are therefore bad for your business!
Get Everyone in the Know
You might already know about our full support and consultancy service for all your online security needs as a small or medium-sized business. Here at Tiro Security, we know that education is still one of the best cybersecurity solutions for any business.
With reducing risk to your business in mind we have devised great cost-effective Security Awareness Training. We believe in the training so much we even built our own phishing scam simulation software. Your staff won’t just be reading about phishing, they will be exposed to simulated threats in real-time practice.
The question is, what would a phishing scam cost you and your business, and is it worth the risk?
Contact us now and grant those employees an education to remember.