Train Your Staff to Protect Your Business

In the course of doing business, sometimes the mundane and repetitive tasks, or the responsibilities that employees don’t necessarily always consider to be part of their jobs, can be overlooked. Like any other business, yours needs people to be vigilant to ensure that it isn’t the victim of a phishing attack. If your team isn’t well-trained, or if it isn’t engaged in the fight against cybercrime, you may find that your business is a sitting duck.

There’s a pretty decent chance that your staff may not prioritize the security of your business’ network. They are probably more focused on doing their job, after all. The easiest way to make them understand how important it is for them to know and follow the best practices of dealing with scams that come into their various work (and personal) inboxes is to make sure they get the applicable training.  After all, 90 percent of all cyberattacks start from someone mishandling a scammer’s phishing message.

Are Your Employees Prepared?

Have you made an effort to level with your people about their role in your organization’s cybersecurity? Your efforts will definitely pay off if they work to protect your network. If you implement a comprehensive training program only to have your network breached, you’re likely dealing with negligence and will have to respond accordingly. 

The best way for your staff to understand how serious the issue is is to level with them. If they are negligent in their duties, there will be appropriate repercussions. You don’t even have to mention what that means. They’ll get it, and most of them will be more careful. In this case, the straightforward ultimatum is absolutely warranted.

Here Are Some Best Practices

If you are going to put out the effort of developing a comprehensive cybersecurity procedure, and make the investment to ensure that your employees are on board, you will want them to understand solid practices. Here are a few that you would find in any professional cybersecurity seminar. 

• Threats - Making employees understand what threats that are actively working against them.
• Password policies - Passwords should be set individually and use NIST best practices. 
• Web practices and protection - Educating employees about how their actions online make a difference. 
• Email practices and protection - Phishing attacks are mostly found in email, so educating them about email best practices. 
• Preventative measures - Educating your staff about all the things you do to protect company data, their PII, and the investment it takes to do so.

Once they are educated properly, they should be ready to help you secure your business. If you would like help developing a strategy to protect your network and educate your staff, reach out to the IT professionals at Washington Works today at 301-571-5040.