5 Security Nightmares that Haunt Your IT Department’s Dreams

For IT departments, there’s nothing spookier than a security breach. From data loss to a ransomware attack, here are five common security threats to watch for along with some tips to help protect your company from cyber boogeymen lurking in the shadows. 

1.     Data Breach 

It’s the horror movie plot sure to scare even the most composed member of your IT staff: Discovering that sensitive data has been made available to those who shouldn’t have access. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to shore up your company’s defenses to minimize the risk of a data breach.

One way is to implement multifactor authentication to make it harder to hack into accounts. You might also choose to limit access for each employee to the information they need. This can help reduce the risk of employees accidentally spreading information to unauthorized parties and make it easier to find the source should a leak occur. 

2. Shadow IT

As the name implies, shadow IT refers to activities or decisions that occur without the knowledge or approval of the IT department. In an ideal
world, the IT department selects or approves all new software or equipment for its organization.

However, with the influx of remote workers, employees sometimes take it upon themselves to choose software or hardware to make their jobs easier – without the IT department’s knowledge or approval.

Shadow IT can create a myriad of risks for an IT department because they don’t know about them in the first place. So how can an IT department combat shadow IT? Education. By making employees aware of how crucial security, compliance, and privacy are, you can help them make better – and less dangerous – decisions. 

3. Ransomware 

While everyone knows what ransomware is, not everyone knows how
to deal with the problem. If an employee comes in with a compromised computer, what is your plan to deal with the issue? If not handled correctly, an infected computer can cause serious problems.

To help prevent a ransomware attack, only give employees access to the parts of the network they need. Using caution, you can help infected accounts from spreading like an army of zombies. 

4. Unprepared or Untrained Help Desk Employees 

Providing constant training to all your IT employees is imperative to help educate them on new, common or targeted threats that could jeopardize the entire IT infrastructure. Help desk leaders should ensure employees are informed and knowledgeable on new tricks and tactics used by bad
actors through regular cyber-security courses, role-playing drills, workshops, monitoring, and testing.

5. Digital Footprint

Bad actors are quick to use publicly available information about
your organization and staff to make their social engineering scamming
techniques more convincing. Some ways to avoid this include:

- Review the information shared on your company’s website and social media pages to ensure you aren’t inadvertently sharing unnecessary information. 

- Ensure employees, partners, contractors, and suppliers know what information can be shared about your company online. 

- Educate your employees on the risks of sharing personal information online and how it can affect them and your organization. 

With a bit of education and constant vigilance, you can help protect your company and your employees from a spooky cyber security situation from now and ever onward.

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