The Role Of Human Error In Cyber-Security

Cyber-security is a big concern for all businesses these days because data loss can be devastating. When you hold a lot of sensitive information about your customers, like their credit card details, it’s up to you to protect them from potential attacks. You also need to protect your own data because you may be at risk of fraud if data loss occurs. Cyber-criminals are constantly adapting their methods and finding new ways around security software, which is why it’s important that you keep it up to date if you are going to protect yourself. But a lot of data breaches don’t occur because of deliberate attacks, they happen as a result of mistakes on the part of your employees. So many businesses underestimate the importance of human error when it comes to data loss and that makes them vulnerable. If you are worried about your online security, you need to be aware of these common mistakes that you and your employees could be making. 

Phishing Emails 

Phishing emails are a very common way for cyber-criminals to get past your security systems, but they rely on human error to work effectively. A phishing email is an email that tricks someone into revealing sensitive information or clicking on a malicious link that then gives them access to your data. They present themselves as being from a trusted source and they can be very convincing, so it’s important that your employees know how to spot them. If you give good training and make sure that employees are checking with the IT team if they have any doubts, you can avoid falling prey to phishing emails. 

Misdelivered Emails 

People send and receive so many emails these days and sometimes, people can make a mistake and send an email to the wrong person. Most of the time, it doesn’t cause any problems, but if it contains sensitive information, it could cause some serious problems. It’s important that people are double checking the recipients before sending sensitive emails, but you should also protect yourself from potential accidents by improving your email security. Click the link to get more info on boosting your email security by protecting your accounts and encrypting important emails. That way, people will not be able to access the email if they receive it by accident, and it will be a lot harder for people to hack into company email accounts. 

Weak Passwords 

Having security systems and encryption in place is so important, but you undermine the protection that you get from it if you use a weak password that is easy to crack. Cyber-criminals love weak passwords because you make their job a lot easier, which is a problem because a lot of people are bad at setting good passwords. It’s difficult to remember lots of different complex passwords so people often use the same password for all of their different accounts and pick something simple. But if you use a password manager, you can ensure that you always have strong passwords that are difficult to crack. 

The right security software is very important, but don’t underestimate the damage that can be done by human error as well.