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Don’t rely on the giants

Posted on Posted in Weekly Tip

The Tip

Some of the big players in tech these days don’t want you to think about security all, it should be as easy as breathing. Although this is a nice utopian vision that we would all like to see come true, unfortunately trusting strictly in the technology is never a good idea. Education is still the key.

The Detail

We are all our own first line of defence when it comes to personal and institutional security. We are also the most likely vector point for a cybersecurity breach. According to Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report, almost one in five cybersecurity breaches were caused by human error. Add to this the fact that nearly 30% of all phishing emails are opened and it doesn’t take long to realize how important educating the human firewall is!

An increase in awareness and knowledge needs to happen at every level in organizations like ours. As the threats become increasingly sophisticated and multi-faceted, untrained people become an even bigger cybersecurity risk than ever. This is why we have been writing this blog and attempting to raise awareness with various KnowBe4 training and testing campaigns. It is important.

This knowledge is not just the responsibility of technology staff and administrators. It is the responsibility of the community as a whole. It only takes one person to open an innocent-looking but malicious email attachment, or give up their password in a phish attempt, to open the entire organization to an attack. No amount of money or tech can prevent this. Just awareness.

At the end of the day, humans are the frontline. We are all both the weakest link, and the first line of defence, in terms of both prevention and mitigation of cybersecurity breaches. Knowledge is key.

From HelpNetSecurity, here are three pieces of advice to improve cybersecurity strategies moving forward;

  • People should be your number one priority – they are the guardians of your assets. Invest in their knowledge and performance. It will pay off immensely.
  • Policies are dynamic – always check, test and recheck them. Rewrite anything that needs updating, and then start over.
  • Know your enemy – never cease to educate and learn about each discovered attack and offensive strategy. It cannot be said more clearly. Knowledge is really a lifesaving factor in our business.