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How Can Businesses Train Their Employees On Cyber Hygiene

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Started career in software development and has experience in sales and partnership.

As cybersecurity leaders, we have to create our message of influence because security is a culture and you need the business to take place and be part of that security culture.” Britney Hommertzheim.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way in which people live their lives. This includes maintaining social distancing, wearing masks, becoming diligent of pandemic hygiene. However, this period also gave an onset to a new norm of working i.e. work from home. This brought along new challenges for businesses as supporting a workforce that’s fully remote was new to many businesses. Moreover, organizations had to outline strategies to make their IT Infrastructure fully available to access from anywhere while ensuring security of the same. While on one hand the pandemic has led to a new form of work culture on the other it has created a need for businesses & individuals to be mindful about their cyber hygiene.

Cyber hygiene alludes to best practices that users ought to embrace while engaging in online activities, such as web browsing, emailing, texting, connecting to the work network for working from home etc. With increased online activity, there is an increased risk and exposure to cyber threats and cyber thefts.

Talking of cyber thefts, not long back, WHO faced a repugnant attack wherein the cyber criminals had set up a website imitating the WHO’s internal email system to steal login credentials from the organization’s employees.

Employees are often of the opinion that the it department can fix everything, or that antivirus programming is almighty


Benefits of Cyber Hygiene
Taking cyber hygiene seriously helps businesses in preventing large-scale data breaches and saves the company from the financial loss and reputation damage. Employees abiding by proper cyber hygiene protocols make the company and themselves less susceptible to attacks, thus eventually boosting the business. Further, a proper knowledge about cyber hygiene instills confidence in clients and other stakeholders in conducting business over the web. To sum up, cyber hygiene helps in:
• Maintaining unobstructed and safe business operations over the web
• Boosting confidence in both the clients and stakeholders about their business
• Reducing risks of financial loss and reputation damage
• Dodging targeted attacks to the employees, clients and stakeholders of a business
• Ensuring better data privacy for users

Employees are often of the opinion that the IT department can fix everything, or that antivirus programming is almighty. None of this is valid. Cyberattacks can come in multiple forms and often escalate in unexpected ways. Employees can't forestall a cyberattack from coming their direction. However, complete data security knowledge for workers can limit human error, increment and increase their reaction capacity.

The most common type of cyber identity theftinclude stealing of password and personal information etc. Thus to curtail and avert cyber theft, it is very important the employees as well as the IT department of the organization prepares a checklist related to cyber hygiene.

Here are some quick tips to maintain cyber hygiene –
• Be wary of clicking on strange links sent via unverified email accounts. It is recommended to install an email spam detector to automate protection from phishing and social engineering attacks.
• Be mindful of the permissions you give to websites, mobile applications & browser extensions.
• Take cognizance of the actions you take on the web, for example the forms you fill and the links you click on.
• Be careful while using an open public network. If possible, always connect to the web through a secure network or VPN.
• Keep your softwares updated with the latest security patches.
• Make sure to keep safe backups of your critical data.
• Always good to keep a tab on the latest cyber attacks& ensure you are protected from them.

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