How Can Your Employees Prevent Cybersecurity Threats

Years back, cybercriminals carried out attacks like DDoS attacks, ransomware attacks, etc. and attacked computers with viruses and spread malware. Now that organizations have become more aware of the ways through which cybercriminals attack their systems and networks and carry out attacks, hackers are trying to carry out attacks through employees, as they consider humans as the weakest link.

While most companies and businesses use the best tools to detect and prevent cyberattacks, they fail to educate their employees on how to detect and prevent threats. This is why hackers have now turned their focus towards employees. It is mandatory to create awareness of threats among employees and teach them how to respond to attacks. If your employees are not aware of the newest form of attacks, cybercriminals can easily use your employees to carry out attacks. This way, hackers can easily steal data and put your business at risk.

In this article, we have listed the most common threats to businesses and the steps your employees can take to identify and prevent threats.

Common Cybersecurity Threats

Identity theft

This is where cybercriminals steal an employee’s personal details, using which they can access their official accounts. This could include the employee’s identifying number, name, and more.

Password Attacks

Password hacking is quite common as many employees tend to use weak passwords or reuse the same password for different work accounts. This practice is most likely to make your employees susceptible to attacks.

Using Unsecured WiFi Networks

Many use unsecured WiFi networks at hotels, restaurants, and airports to share important financial information or sensitive business information. Cybercriminals can easily hack such WiFi networks and read your emails, view your contacts, and steal sensitive data.

Phishing

Hackers carry out phishing attacks through email, text messages, or over the phone. Hackers send messages or emails with malicious links and try to get the receivers to click on them. They pretend to be trusted contacts and send emails with malicious attachments. They send such emails and messages to get the employee to click on malicious links or download malicious attachments and provide sensitive information.

Malware Attacks

Employees can unknowingly download malware to their devices by downloading infected files from the internet or by downloading and installing malicious apps. Email attachments employees receive from unknown contacts could have malware. By downloading it, they will indirectly infect their computers. One can unknowingly download malware through file sharing activities and from spammy websites.

How Can Employees Prevent Cyber Attacks

The first thing every company has to do is to educate their employees about the possible threats. Following are a few ways through which employees can prevent cyberattacks.

Educate Your Employees

Now that hackers are targeting employees to carry out attacks, it is recommended to educate your employees and make them aware of the different types of threats. Employees must be educated about the fraudulent emails cybercriminals send requesting sensitive information, impersonating some legitimate person within the company. They have to be made aware of the fraudulent links and attachments cybercriminals can send via email. Employees will need to know that they can easily fall into the trap of hackers if they happen to click on one such link or download attachments. In order to prevent your employees from becoming victims of such hacking attempts, it is crucial to create awareness among them and train them on cyber attack prevention.

Train employees to verify links before they click on them. The same applies to email attachments, as well; they will need to verify email addresses before they share the requested information or download attachments. If the email address from which they received an attachment looks odd, they must delete it right away and must not respond to it or download attachments received in that email.

Update Passwords and Use Multi-Factor Authentication

Using a password manager is one of the best ways to help your employees create and store strong passwords. Whether they use a password manager or not, the password they create has to be a combination of letters, numbers, special characters, and symbols, and it must not be easy to guess. Encourage your employees to avoid using their names, the names of their children, spouse, pets, date of birth, etc., as their passwords. Likewise, they must not reuse passwords and should use unique passwords for each account or app.

In addition, it is wise to use multi-factor authentication wherever possible. This is a method where the user will have to present two or more factors to verify their identity and gain access to an account or an app.

Regularly Update Software and Systems

Employees must make sure they keep their systems and software updated. Whenever there is an update available, they must install the updates. Generally, software updates include patches for security vulnerabilities. When they fail to install such updates, they will leave weaknesses that cybercriminals can exploit and access their network and other sensitive information. This can be prevented by regularly updating their systems and software.

A patch management system will also help manage all kinds of updates, be it system updates or software updates.

Install Firewall

One of the most effective ways to prevent yourself from cyberattacks is by securing your network with a Firewall. A Firewall will protect your network from brute-force attacks and malicious network traffic, and it will also prevent unauthorized remote access. This way, a Firewall will secure your network from various types of attacks and protect your device.

Tools Employees Can Use to Protect Themselves

Virtual Private Networks (VPN)

When employees happen to travel, they might have to use a public WiFi network at a restaurant, cafe, airport, or hotel to access their official accounts. Not all WiFi networks are secure and most free public WiFi networks are not secure. When an employee uses one such network to access sensitive information, he or she is indirectly putting their information at risk. Cybercriminals can easily hack such free WiFi networks and steal information from users connecting to such networks. To prevent this from happening, employees can use a VPN that can encrypt their sensitive data and keep it safe and away from the prying eyes of hackers.

Antivirus Software

Antivirus software like Norton Security will protect against advanced online threats like malware and ransomware attacks and against malicious websites. This software will warn the user of suspicious websites and prevent them from accessing a website that can be malicious. A good antivirus software will also scan downloads and the device for malware and viruses.

The Final Word

When it comes to cybersecurity threats, the whole company has to work together to strengthen the organization’s security posture. Be it a small or a large organization, cybersecurity has to be prioritized and companies have to take the required steps to educate their employees on how to stay away from cyberattacks. As much as your business information is valuable to you and your website users, it is also valuable to cybercriminals, as well. So, they will always keep looking for ways to carry out an attack to either ruin your business’s reputation, steal money, or steal sensitive data. It is wise to educate employees in the first place about cybersecurity threats to make sure they do not get tricked and make sure hackers do not use them to carry out attacks.