Improving employees’ cybersecurity awareness often hinges on communicating those initiatives into risks they understand.
March 1, 2017
There’s a C- on your report card, but you’re not alone: The 2017 Global Cybersecurity Assurance Report Card found that the world’s information security practitioners gave global cybersecurity readiness an overall score of 70 percent – a six-point drop over 2016.
Every day we are updated about the latest cybersecurity breaches – whether it's Yahoo, Dropbox or LinkedIn, how many records have been stolen, or how much companies have paid in result from ransomware or financial fraud.
Chief security officers are the obvious point people to address a workforce’s cybersecurity concerns. While it is the obligation of a CSO or CISO to spearhead a company’s defense against cyber attacks, the responsibility cannot fall solely on the shoulders of a single person.
In 2015, it seemed no one was safe from hackers. The year began with Sony reeling from a hack that put the studio and celebrities such as Seth Rogen and James Franco in a web of geopolitics and extortion. Seven months later came the high-profile Ashley Madison hack, which resulted in the release of the email and physical addresses for 37 million users. Cybercriminals stole $1 billion from banks in 30 countries as part of the Carbanak hack. Even the Director of the CIA wasn’t safe – his AOL email account was hacked by someone claiming to be a high school student.
Cyber criminals are now using sophisticated social engineering techniques to target employees and trick them into handing over funds and divulging sensitive corporate data. Luckily there are a number of steps organizations can take to protect themselves and their employees from this increasingly popular and successful form of threat.
As the age of the Internet is hitting a crescendo, cyber vulnerability is no longer a growing concern; it is a reality most businesses will face in the near future without adequate network protection.
After the leak of the Panama Papers and a string of ransomware attacks, will these new developments lead to new priorities for lawyers, doctors and enterprises at large? Can financial losses or the damage to the reputation of a health system or law firm lead to a new sense of urgency to update accepted security practices and even codes of conduct with hospital data? Will regulatory bodies mandate more training for these two distinguished professions that have largely opted out of serious cybersecurity training up until now?