10 Tips to Help Your Non-IT Staff Become Cyber Smart

Tips to Help Your Non-IT Staff Become Cyber Smart

Cybersecurity breaches continue to be on the rise. Of these breaches, 95% are caused by human error. Of course, employees do not intend for these errors to happen and most feel embarrassed and frustrated when a breach occurs due to a mistake that they made. With the percentage of cyber incidents being greatly impacted by regular non-IT employees, security professionals and the industry has deemed “employees the weakest link” for years. However, this does not solve the issue. Many are now suggesting that we rephrase and reposition this idea so that employees can be your greatest protectors. They can be cyber smart and protect your valuable data! Employees have the power to make an impact during their everyday interactions online and it is up to the IT security team, human resources and upper management to provide the necessary tools for them to be able to yield this power. So, what are some tips that can help you to make it so your non-IT staff to follow security policies?  Check out our top ten tips to help your staff become the cyber smart staff that you need them to be:   

  1. Build a culture of security. Create a culture where all upper management and staff are prioritizing online security more than once per year. Provide cyber-tips in regular communications such as newsletters, staff meetings and one on ones.  
  2. Ditch the annual training. Yes, annual training used to be sufficient, but with cybersecurity breaches increasing, companies need to look at training on a semi-annual or quarterly basis. Cybersecurity courses such as the CompTIA A+ certification training or network+ certification training all include components of security awareness and will also provide your team with invaluable skills. Security+ certification or CySA+ certification training are also excellent options. If the IT professional courses are beyond your team right now, consider a continuing professional development webinar on cybersecurity for the user. These free webinars are a great way to increase awareness for your team if you are a small or mid-sized business trying to keep costs to a minimum.  
  3. Include information on how to be safe online at home and on personal devices. Even if your company is not using BYOD, there are many times organizations allow individuals to access cloud information at home or on the road. The safer your staff is at home, the safer the company is. Considering most people re-use passwords, how safe your employees’ personal information is may have a direct impact on your company information.  
  4. Ensure proper password management. Training on password management and mandatory password updates are important factors to keeping your company information safe. Take the time to help staff understand that unique passwords are much more difficult to crack and can be the difference between a cyber attack being successful or unsuccessful.  
  5. Teach your staff about phishing scams. The best of us can fall victim to a phishing scam, but providing cybersecurity awareness training that focuses on paying attention to subject lines, suspicious links and never sharing sensitive data via email is important for the overall protection of the company.  
  6. Update applications whenever an update is ready. Yes, these updates can be irritating and they often seem to pop up at the most inopportune times, but getting these done as soon as they are available should be an important component of your team’s IT security plan.  
  7. Never use public wifi when conducting work, when using a work device or on a cloud platform that contains work materials.  
  8. Include a cyber awareness component in your onboarding process. The next cyber awareness training may be months out. Onboarding is a time when you have your new staff’s attention, use it to protect your company.  
  9. Use live-fire simulating attacks and reward employees who are successful rather than shaming those who were not. Highlight those who were able to recognize and attack and ask them to share their success at the next staff meeting. Everyone enjoys being highlighted and praised. 
  10. Instruct employees on who to call when they suspect a breach. They should have access to primary and secondary contacts to ensure a rapid response to minimize the effects of a potential breach.  


If you want to learn more about how to protect your company, check out our previous blog on Why Your CISO Needs Support to Protect Your Business. 


Written by: Marla Ovenden-Cooper 

 

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