Employees are the biggest threat to network security

Unfortunately, employees are the biggest threat to network security.

It’s no secret that businesses require some form of management to operate effectively. From defining key roles and responsibilities for each employee to interacting with customers, managers hold a lot of responsibilities, especially when it comes to information security.

There’s a misconception that risks and security incidents should be handled on a case by case basis.  Even after the breach has occurred. This belief is misguided and something that your business can’t afford to believe. Recent studies show that sixty percent of hackers can breach an organization’s safeguards within just a few minutes. With the number of security incidents continuing to increase, it’s apparent that data security should be a major concern for your business.

It’s time to address the elephant in the room regarding your data safety—your employees.

No matter what program or application that you use to protect your data, it’s only effective if your employees know how to use it.  60 percent of the time, hackers are able to break into a system using a legitimate user’s access.

Training your employees to have strong passwords and securely share information is crucial. But you can’t expect for your employees to be compliant with your security demands if you don’t define their specific security roles and responsibilities.

Plan out how you’re going to approach your data security by ensuring that you have the appropriate managers and overseers in place. Once this is complete, assess the potential risks and create hierarchical solutions that can be repeated.

When you’re ready to move forward, here is how to be sure that your employees are not the biggest threat to network security:

1. Security Committee: Those on this board will review your organization’s security management policies and provides leadership, guidance and oversight to security problems.
2. Management: In small organizations, this would also be the security committee. Once the security plan has been approved, the group will communicate the process to all parties and employees.
3. IT Management Firm: Your IT solutions provider would be responsible for data processing and your overall business network. They will also interact with the security committee to create a security policy and is responsible for implementation.
4. Data Owners: These members classify the information within their jurisdiction by reviewing its value and sensitivity. They discover the implications that losing their data means. They also determine the type of access that each employee will receive.
5. Users: In this case, these are the staff members that have to comply with your security policy and ensure that they don’t disclose or share their login credentials and passwords.
6. Training: Encourage best practices for internet and email security.

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