When it comes to managing your organization’s cybersecurity, the task doesn’t end as prioritizing it with your budget. Most breaches begin at the employee level, whether an employee is targeted or makes an honest mistake. Focusing on your employees will aid immensely in the security of your organization’s IT infrastructure. Let’s take a look at the best security tips for your employees.
8 Cybersecurity Tips for Your Employees
1. Clicking Without Thinking Is Reckless
Teach employees to think before they click. Remember, careless clicking can cost you a hefty sum. Malicious links can do damage in several different ways, so be sure to have employees inspect links and ensure they’re from trusted senders before clicking.
2. Use Two-Factor Authentication
Having a strong password is important, but it’s even more imperative to have two-factor, or multi-factor authentication. This method provides two layers of security measures, so if a hacker can accurately guess your password, there is still an additional security measure in place to ensure that your account is not breached.
3. Look Out for Phishing Scams
With over 3 billion fake emails sent daily, phishing attacks are some of the greatest cybersecurity threats as they are very easy to fall for. In a phishing attack, a hacker will pose as someone that the recipient may be familiar with to trick them into opening a malicious link, divulging important credentials, or opening software that infects the recipient’s system with a virus. The best way to be on the lookout for phishing scams is by deleting emails from unfamiliar senders, looking for grammatical errors or any inconsistencies in the email that look suspicious, verifying the sender by phone, and hovering over any link you receive to verify what the destination is.
4. Monitor Your Digital Footprint
Whether they’re for personal or work, encourage your employees to monitor online accounts, credit cards, etc., for suspicious activity. It’s important to keep track of your digital footprint, including social media, and to delete accounts you’re not using while ensuring you set strong passwords.
5. Keep Up With Updates
Software patches can be issued when security flaws are discovered. Help your employees understand software update notifications are as important as their next project deadline and cannot be ignored.
6. Connect Securely
With a growing remote workforce, it’s important to stress the importance of connecting to secure, private networks. For example, employees should not be accessing organization files while on public coffee shop networks. The consequences of connecting a device to an unsecured connection are too severe, especially when handling sensitive information.
7. Always Back-Up Everything
Make sure you have backup storage solutions for your employees, especially when they are storing company information. With the cheap cost of cloud storage, there is no excuse not to have a backup of important data. Back it up on a physical location and the cloud. Remember, malicious threats and hackers don’t always want to steal your data, but sometimes the end goal is to encrypt or erase it. Back it up to have an ultimate recovery tool.
8. No One is Immune
Make sure to create a culture of both compliance and reporting. Employees need to understand that no individual is immune to being the target of an attack. Employees should also know that the best reaction is immediately reporting suspected suspicious activity to your IT team.
Manage Your Employee’s IT Security
One of the best ways to manage your organization’s cybersecurity is to manage your employee’s security and educate them on the topic. Many hacks and breaches begin with one single employee. It is rarely intentional or malicious, but cybercriminals target unknowing individual employees to gain access to the greater organization.
For over 20 years, Clarity Technology Group has provided innovative managed IT services and cybersecurity solutions to businesses like yours. To talk with a Clarity team member about your business, schedule a free assessment here.