The Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Saturday-morning cartoon series featured four teenagers and their lovable, talking Great Dane, Scooby-Doo. These pals solved mysteries involving supposedly supernatural creatures through a series of antics and missteps. It only took the mention of a Scooby Snack to keep Scooby from being a scaredy-cat and rise up to foil the plans of an unsuspecting crook. In real life, thwarting the plans of cybercriminals is not so much solving a mystery as it is taking a closer look inside your own operation. According to the Harvard Business Review, approximately 60% of the time an unwitting employee accidentally leaves the digital front door open.

The biggest security threat to your company isn’t roaming hackers, it’s your employees. Here’s why:

They’ll slip up because they don’t know any better. With the proliferation of technology has come an exponential rise in digital threats of a great variety and complexity. Each of your employees’ lives are a labyrinth of passwords, interconnected online accounts and precious data. If their vigilance slacks at any point, it not only leaves them vulnerable, but it leaves your company vulnerable as well. For this reason, most cyber-attacks come down to a lack of cyber security education.

They’ll trust the wrong person. Hackers are notorious for posing as a trusted member of your own team. And if you believe that you’d be able to spot an impostor from a mile away, you may want to think again. It is easier than ever to crack individual users’ email passwords and login credentials, especially with personal information so easily accessible on social media. A simple visit to Facebook can give a hacker all they need to know to “social hack” their way into the heart of your business.

They’ll miss red flags while surfing the web. Clickbait is more than a nuisance plaguing your social media feeds. It can be a powerful tool for hackers trolling for easy prey. If an employee doesn’t understand what exactly makes a site or link look dubious, they may open themselves—and your company—to browser exploits or other types of attacks.

They’re terrible at passwords. According to Entreprenuer.com, “3 out of 4 consumers use duplicate passwords, many of which have not been changed in five years or more.” Even more of those passwords are simply weak, inviting easy access for unsavory elements. Many people brush off the importance of strong passwords, but the risks posed by the password “123456” or “password” cannot be overstated.

When it comes to defending your precious assets against digital threats, it can seem impossible to protect yourself at every turn. But there is one way you can make a concrete change that will tighten up your security more than you realize: educate your people. Through a comprehensive security training program, including specific examples of methods hackers use—particularly phishing—you can drastically minimize the risk of an employee accidentally opening up a malicious email or posting sensitive information. When you make a concerted effort to make the entire organization vigilant against cyber-attacks, you’re much less likely to be targeted.

Click here to contact us today to learn more about our Cybersecurity Awareness Training program and how it can help your employees stay safe online! We might even throw in a Scooby Snack!

 
First published in our March 2019 IT Radix Resource newsletter