Why Your Staff Needs IT Security Awareness Training

Cyber security companies continue to invest heavily in developing more effective cyber security tools. They are adding and perfecting Artificial Intelligence, Behavior Analysis, and Advanced threat protection, and more, all in an effort to protect your business from hackers and malware. Isn’t that enough? And if it is, why do insurance companies, governments and IT companies continue to urge you to offer awareness training to your employees? A recent story with a client of ours answers that question.

How the Hack Began

A hacker called my client’s company one day and was lucky to speak to a new receptionist. He knew a little bit about the company already -- certain key personnel, branch numbers, etc -- which he most likely learned by doing a little bit of research online. So the new receptionist answered the phone, and the attacker said that he was from IT and had to fix an issue.

Because the new receptionist had never received Employee Awareness Training, she was not familiar with or warned about how to watch for such things on the phone. So the receptionist actually assisted the hacker with logging into the company network. Once the bad guys were on the network, it took them only moments to install Trojan viruses and steal data from the company.

Something Wasn’t Right

The company only found out that something happened because the receptionist happened to mention that the IT guy had called. When the manager asked for details that called, the manager raised the alarm because something didn’t feel right.

The hacker gained access to the system logged in as the receptionist and there was no security system designed to protect the company that could have known that her actions were controlled by a criminal and not the receptionist.

Every day, business people at all levels are open to threats and attacks. Sometimes they are as brazen as this, but more often they arrive in an email inbox disguised as a login to a financial institution or web service. And every minute of every day, someone is falling for this trick.

Can This Happen To You?

Don’t let your employees be one of those people. You need to conduct thorough Employee Awareness Training sessions for all of your employees when they start work, and continually thereafter. It’s not difficult, and thankfully Digital Uppercut can help. We are an IT support and security company and regularly conduct these trainings for our clients. But this training alone is not enough. Your company should also have a complete security strategy in place for your business. Don’t have that, either? Call Digital Uppercut at 818-713-1335 or contact us today.