Are Humans Really The Weakest Cybersecurity Link?

You can be Strongest or Weakest link in SECURITY – As it is Incomplete without “U” Many researchers have proven that in the People-Process-Technology pyramid, people have been accounted as the weakest link in security breach with over and above 70%, succeeded by threat & vulnerability management through patches and upgrades, accounting for just 14% of successful attacks. Although security professionals may be productive at degrading the aftereffect of Cyberattacks within their organization, the board of directors should be informed that rogue employees are still one of the top identified threats, according to research. It is a truth that provides us with well-timed cues for all enterprises to protect data from not only external threats but also from internal weak links.

Fortunately, cybersecurity professionals across different parts of the world have provided many perfect answers to bring down the efforts of hackers, with everything they have like antivirus software to multi-factor authentication. Still, even after the presence of these tools, they are leaning on humans to bring them into working and ensure that they are performing as per call.

So, security is as good as the people avail themselves of, and because of this, errors and vulnerabilities are only natural and uncontrollable events to occur. It’s obvious, there is space for upgrades & updates when it comes to people and how effective they are with cybersecurity. Let’s look at some issues and a few solutions.

What is the Human Strand in Cybersecurity? As humans, we are bound to make mistakes, but when it comes to security, one minor fallacy can result in a major data incident, and it happens a lot.

Research shows that 46% of cybersecurity breaches and incidents were caused due to negligence or lack of training.

This is a disturbing count, but it is only the tip of the iceberg, as it is also found that in 40% of the organizations in the world, employees have accepted for not reporting a security breach as and when it happened.

So why are humans counted responsible for so many security incidents? Are they slugs? Do they just disregard the security incidents and their causes? While it may not be as straightforward as that, these factors may subconsciously impact the lack of bringing it to notice.

It is possible that they are just ignorant and do not understand the seriousness of a cyber threat and what are its consequences for the company, and certainly their jobs. Conduct a meeting with your task force and employees, you should discuss the necessity of being surveillant and make them understand the possible repercussions.

Recent data says that the average price of a data breach incident in 2020 is $3.86 million, and that does not include the damage caused to your reputation. Some enterprises may not even recover from such huge penalties, so giving them the facts, so they pay more attention.

As for the laziness angle, it is hard to assume that employees do not wish to inform about the incidents, but they may not be aware of how to do so. Set up a user-friendly and easy-to-remember email or a direct line where employees or customers can easily report suspicious activity and provide screen grabs so the Incident Helpdesk team can take immediate action.

Training is the answer What we may see as a lack of ignorance by employees may really be a lack of knowledge regarding trending scams and the ultimatums of threat. Trained employees are essential for organizations so that they are on alert while they go for their KRA’s. As technology dependence grows and working from home becomes a new normal, the risk of cyber attacks continues to evolve along with it, so if employees know their basics, they may be able to identify the threats around them.

Sometimes, users do have knowledge of what action they need to take but not how to do it competently. So as an organization we need to train them on password usage. Educate them on multi-factor authentication, so they have an extra layer of security not only on their work computers but on their personal devices as well, especially if they are used at work.

Building Security volunteers Security volunteers can act as advocates for security and training for new joiners across the organization, they can also involve with training planners to provide feedback about the effectiveness of security training & programs. As with many other aspects, the central team can guide the way to make employees vigilant and security volunteers in their department.

Maintain strong defense As we implement standard data protection techniques such as cryptography and USER rights management, user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) systems should also be implemented that can flag suspicious employee activity, such as restricted data transfers that could be a sign of criminal intent.

Help your employees to be prepared Train your employees’ bottoms up for the security team so that they become ready for running and testing for end-to-end effectiveness. They should be practiced for monitoring abnormal activity or any anomaly created by bad actors on a continuous basis and vigilantly. Training them via Social-engineering.

Once the training is complete, and the employees are aware of the signs, ask all your employees to sign a memo or acknowledge the training that they are required to disclose any cyber threats they see or identify to the appropriate team.

Conclusion Cyber Security is incomplete unless every individual puts efforts to achieve this and to make each employee work towards achieving Cybersecurity, we need to train them on identifying, reporting, and neutralizing the threats that are around. The professionals of cybersecurity can protect the data via the installation of a Firewall, Network Security Devices, Antivirus, etc. But to protect the end-user host and device, the user must know how to upgrade the antivirus, report spam and phishing emails, understand what is coming from authenticated sources and what is a Cyberattacks attempt.