InTegriLogic Blog

Many SMBs operate with a sense of unrealistic optimism when it comes to data loss and disaster recovery. However, the reality can be quite different and can negatively affect your business if you’re not vigilant. As the rate of digitalization increases, so does the risk of data loss. Can your business afford a data-loss incident?

It doesn’t matter if data loss happens because of human error, cyberattack or natural disaster. It can have far-reaching consequences such as:

 

1. Severe downtime: For SMBs, per-hour downtime costs vary from $10,000 to $50,000.¹

2. Damage to reputation: One-third of customers will end their association with a business following a severe data loss.²

3. Regulatory penalties: Failure to protect data can draw penalties worth 2% to 4% or more of company turnover.³

4. Permanent closure: Some businesses are unable to recover from an incident and close permanently.

  Prioritizing backup and disaster recovery for your business is very important. A comprehensive backup and disaster recovery solution provides secure, uninterrupted backup and quick data recovery — with a cloud-based architecture that ensures the business runs seamlessly in the event of a disaster.

 

Key Terms Used in Backup and Disaster Recovery

The following terms will give you an idea about the type of actions and processes you should aim to implement within your business:

 

• Minimum Business Continuity Objective (MBCO)

MBCO signifies the minimum level of output needed after severe disruption to achieve business objectives.

• Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption (MTPD)

MTPD is the duration after which the impact on a business caused by minimal or zero output becomes intolerably severe.

• Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

RTO is the time it takes before employees can start working after a data-loss event. It’s usually measured in minutes.

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

RPO is the amount of work that can be lost and will need to be done again after a data-loss event. It’s usually measured in seconds.

 

Deploy Backup and Disaster Recovery Today

Having an effective backup and disaster recovery solution provides several benefits. Here are the top six:

 

1. Stay protected against natural disasters

The first half of 2020 alone had close to 200 reported natural disasters. While it’s impossible to stop a natural disaster, you can ensure your data is protected and take the necessary measures to prevent downtime.

 

2. Minimize the impact of a cyberattack

With the rate of cyberattacks going through the roof and with SMBs being a constant target of attacks, it is essential to have a robust backup and disaster recovery solution to protect your business.

 

3. Safeguard sensitive data

If your business handles sensitive data like Personally Identifiable Information (PII), measures should be taken to ensure it never ends up in the wrong hands. Safeguarding all critical data can build your business’s reputation and prevent regulatory penalties.

 

4. Quick recovery

It doesn’t matter how disaster strikes. What matters is how quickly your business bounces back. A good backup and disaster recovery solution helps you get up and running as soon as possible.

 

5. Reduce the impact of human error

From accidental or intentional misdelivery or deletion to corruption of data, employees can pose a security threat to your business. Deploying backup and disaster recovery is, therefore, crucial. You must also train your employees on the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

 

6. Tackle system failure

Unexpected system failure can lead to downtime if you don’t equip your business with backup and disaster recovery.

Remember, it’s your responsibility to protect your business from data loss and its chaotic aftereffects. If you can’t handle this alone, don’t worry. We’re here for you. With our backup and disaster recovery solutions, we can help build a resilient strategy to protect your business against data loss and give you much-needed peace of mind in the event of a disaster.

      Article curated and used by permission.

Sources:

1. TechRadar

2. IDC Report

3. GDPR Associates

Cybercriminals work round the clock to detect and exploit vulnerabilities in your business’ network for nefarious gains. The only way to counter these hackers is by deploying a robust cybersecurity posture that’s built using comprehensive security solutions. However, while you’re caught up doing this, there is a possibility you may overlook mitigating the weakest link in your fight against cybercriminals — your employees.

With remote work gaining traction and decentralized workspaces becoming the new norm, businesses like yours must strengthen their cybersecurity strategies to counter human errors and data breaches perpetrated by malicious insiders. All employees, irrespective of their designation/rank, can expose your business vulnerabilities to cybercriminals.

Implementing routine security awareness training for employees can help you prevent a vulnerability from escalating into a disaster. As the first line of defense against cyberattacks, your employees must be thoroughly and regularly trained to identify and deflate potential cyberthreats.

 

Why Employees Pose a Risk to Businesses?

According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020, 23 percent of data breaches in an organization occurred because of human error. An untrained employee can compromise your business’ security in multiple ways. Some of the most common errors committed by employees include:

1. Falling for phishing scams: With the onset of COVID-19, hackers masquerading as the World Health Organization (WHO) tricked people into clicking on malicious links and sharing sensitive information. Cybercriminals are using improved techniques, like spoofed emails and text messages, to propagate the ongoing scam. Your employees must be well-trained to counter it.
2. Bad password hygiene: A section of your employees might reuse the same password or a set of passwords for multiple accounts (business and personal), which is a dangerous habit that allows cybercriminals to crack your business’ network security.
3. Misdelivery: Even slight carelessness can lead to an employee sending sensitive, business-critical information to a hacker. Such an act can cause lasting damage to your business, which is why you must be prepared to counter it.
4. Inept patch management: Often, employees can delay the deployment of a security patch sent to their device, which can lead to security vulnerabilities in your business’ IT security left unaddressed.

The bottom line is that with cybercriminals upgrading their arsenal every day and exploring a plethora of options to trap your employees, security awareness training has become more important than ever before.

 

Security Awareness Training: An Essential Investment

A one-time training program will neither help your employees repel cyberthreats nor help your business develop a security culture. To deal with the growing threat landscape, your employees need thorough and regular security awareness training.

You must never back out of providing continual security awareness training to your employees just because of the time and money you need to invest in it. The return on investment will be visible in the form of better decision-making employees who efficiently respond in the face of adversity, ultimately saving your business from data breaches, damage to reputation and potentially expensive lawsuits. The following statistics highlight why you must deploy regular security awareness training and consider it a necessary investment:

• Eighty percent of organizations experience at least one compromised account threat per month. ¹
• Sixty-seven percent of data breaches result from human error, credential theft or social attack. ²
• Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, phishing attacks have gone up by 67 percent. ³

 
Expecting your employees to train themselves on how to detect and respond to cyberthreats certainly isn’t the best way to deal with an ever-evolving threat landscape. You must take on the responsibility of providing regular training to your employees to ensure you adequately prepare them to identify and ward off potential cyberattacks.

Every employee must realize that even a minor mistake can snowball into a terrible security disaster for the company. They need to understand that your business’ cybersecurity is also their responsibility.

You can transform your business’ biggest cybersecurity risk – your employees – into its prime defense against threats by developing a security culture that emphasizes adequate and regular security awareness training.

Making all this happen will require continued effort and may seem like an uphill climb, but with the right partner by your side, you can easily integrate security awareness training into your business’ cybersecurity strategy. The first step towards training and empowering your employees starts with an email to us. Feel free to get in touch anytime.

 
 
 
Article curated and used by permission.
 
Sources:

1. McAfee Cloud Adoption & Risk Report
2. Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report
3. Security Magazine Verizon Data Breach Digest

Cybercriminals work round the clock to detect and exploit vulnerabilities in your business’ network for nefarious gains. The only way to counter these hackers is by deploying a robust cybersecurity posture that’s built using comprehensive security solutions. However, while you’re caught up doing this, there is a possibility you may overlook mitigating the weakest link in your fight against cybercriminals — your employees.

With remote work gaining traction and decentralized workspaces becoming the new norm, businesses like yours must strengthen their cybersecurity strategies to counter human errors and data breaches perpetrated by malicious insiders. All employees, irrespective of their designation/rank, can expose your business vulnerabilities to cybercriminals.

Implementing routine security awareness training for employees can help you prevent a vulnerability from escalating into a disaster. As the first line of defense against cyberattacks, your employees must be thoroughly and regularly trained to identify and deflate potential cyberthreats.

 

Why Employees Pose a Risk to Businesses?

According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020, 23 percent of data breaches in an organization occurred because of human error. An untrained employee can compromise your business’ security in multiple ways. Some of the most common errors committed by employees include:

1. Falling for phishing scams: With the onset of COVID-19, hackers masquerading as the World Health Organization (WHO) tricked people into clicking on malicious links and sharing sensitive information. Cybercriminals are using improved techniques, like spoofed emails and text messages, to propagate the ongoing scam. Your employees must be well-trained to counter it.
2. Bad password hygiene: A section of your employees might reuse the same password or a set of passwords for multiple accounts (business and personal), which is a dangerous habit that allows cybercriminals to crack your business’ network security.
3. Misdelivery: Even slight carelessness can lead to an employee sending sensitive, business-critical information to a hacker. Such an act can cause lasting damage to your business, which is why you must be prepared to counter it.
4. Inept patch management: Often, employees can delay the deployment of a security patch sent to their device, which can lead to security vulnerabilities in your business’ IT security left unaddressed.

The bottom line is that with cybercriminals upgrading their arsenal every day and exploring a plethora of options to trap your employees, security awareness training has become more important than ever before.

 

Security Awareness Training: An Essential Investment

A one-time training program will neither help your employees repel cyberthreats nor help your business develop a security culture. To deal with the growing threat landscape, your employees need thorough and regular security awareness training.

You must never back out of providing continual security awareness training to your employees just because of the time and money you need to invest in it. The return on investment will be visible in the form of better decision-making employees who efficiently respond in the face of adversity, ultimately saving your business from data breaches, damage to reputation and potentially expensive lawsuits. The following statistics highlight why you must deploy regular security awareness training and consider it a necessary investment:

• Eighty percent of organizations experience at least one compromised account threat per month. ¹
• Sixty-seven percent of data breaches result from human error, credential theft or social attack. ²
• Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, phishing attacks have gone up by 67 percent. ³

  Expecting your employees to train themselves on how to detect and respond to cyberthreats certainly isn’t the best way to deal with an ever-evolving threat landscape. You must take on the responsibility of providing regular training to your employees to ensure you adequately prepare them to identify and ward off potential cyberattacks.

Every employee must realize that even a minor mistake can snowball into a terrible security disaster for the company. They need to understand that your business’ cybersecurity is also their responsibility.

You can transform your business’ biggest cybersecurity risk – your employees – into its prime defense against threats by developing a security culture that emphasizes adequate and regular security awareness training.

Making all this happen will require continued effort and may seem like an uphill climb, but with the right partner by your side, you can easily integrate security awareness training into your business’ cybersecurity strategy. The first step towards training and empowering your employees starts with an email to us. Feel free to get in touch anytime.

      Article curated and used by permission.   Sources:

1. McAfee Cloud Adoption & Risk Report
2. Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report
3. Security Magazine Verizon Data Breach Digest

Your business’ security program must start with your employees and strong security policies rather than entirely depending on your IT team or the latest security solutions. You can significantly reduce the likelihood of a data breach by combining a well-drafted cybersecurity policy with comprehensive security awareness training.

It is your responsibility to implement security training for all your employees so that your organization can withstand cyberattacks and carry out business as usual. Regular training will also help you develop a security-focused culture within your business and make cybersecurity awareness second nature to your employees.

Cybercriminals can target your employees at any moment to gain access to sensitive business data. However, if your employees receive regular security awareness training, their calculated decision-making and quick response can effectively block deceiving threats.

Security Culture and Its Influence on Employees

Conducting a one-time employee training session for the sake of compliance does not adequately benefit your business’ cybersecurity posture. It is regular security awareness training that can truly protect your business from looming cyberthreats that are constantly on the rise.

The following statistics throw light on why security awareness training is essential in today’s threat landscape:

1. Human errors cause 23 percent of data breaches¹.
2. Over 35 percent of employees do not know about ransomware².
3. Nearly 25 percent of employees have clicked on malicious links without confirming their legitimacy³.

The aim of developing a security-focused culture is to nurture positive security habits among employees. For example, the simple habit of locking one’s computer screen when leaving the workstation unattended can prevent data from being accessed by unauthorized users.

Once you properly train your employees, they will be more aware of the business’ security policies and will realize that their employer’s cybersecurity is their responsibility as well.

 

Tips to Implement Effective Security Awareness Training

 Until recently, companies would impart security awareness training as lectures using a slide deck. Businesses conducted these training sessions once a year or once during induction. However, these sessions proved ineffective because of their uninteresting nature and lack of follow-up sessions.

If you intend to develop a security-focused culture, implementing robust security awareness training is crucial. Here are a few tips that can help you effectively implement security training:

1. Make the training sessions interactive - Your employees will show more interest if you deliver training in high-quality video format since it grabs more attention. Add text content only as a complementary piece to the video. Ensure that the presentation is appealing to your employees so that they do not miss out on important details. Also, make sure your employees can clear their doubts through face-to-face discussions or virtual conversations with subject matter experts.
2. Break the training into smaller modules - Since the attention span of your employees will almost certainly vary from one to another, breaking training sessions into smaller modules will help them retain information faster as a whole. You can regularly send training modules to your employees to ensure they are up to speed on the latest security topics. Smaller units have a better chance of retention than lengthy pieces of content.
3. Facilitate self-paced learning - Give your employees the freedom to learn at their convenience. This, of course, does not mean deadlines should not be set either. Make sure you give your employees sufficient time to complete each training module based on its complexity.
4. Training must include relevant material - The training material must not contain any outdated information. Given how quickly the cyberthreat landscape is changing, the training must be updated regularly and must cover new cyberthreats so hackers don’t end up tricking your employees. Please remember that the content should not be overly technical. The training material must be imparted in an easy-to-understand manner, so employees have no trouble applying it in daily work scenarios.
5. Conduct reviews with quizzes and mock drills - To assess your employees’ preparedness, you must conduct regular tests, including mock drills, that assess alertness based on their response to simulated scams.

 

Transform Your Weakest Link Into Your Prime Defense

 Regular security awareness training can help develop a transformative security culture within your business, thus enabling your employees to detect even sophisticated cyberthreats and undertake adequate action.

We understand that implementing robust security awareness training can be a bit challenging. However, you have nothing to worry about. We can help you seamlessly integrate security awareness training into your business operations to make your employees the first line of defense against existing or imminent cyberthreats. Get in touch with us today and let us get started.

 
 
 
Article curated and used by permission.
Sources:

1. IBM 2020 Cost of Data Breach Report
2. Opinion Matters Survey
3. Help Net Security Magazine

Your business’ security program must start with your employees and strong security policies rather than entirely depending on your IT team or the latest security solutions. You can significantly reduce the likelihood of a data breach by combining a well-drafted cybersecurity policy with comprehensive security awareness training.

It is your responsibility to implement security training for all your employees so that your organization can withstand cyberattacks and carry out business as usual. Regular training will also help you develop a security-focused culture within your business and make cybersecurity awareness second nature to your employees.

Cybercriminals can target your employees at any moment to gain access to sensitive business data. However, if your employees receive regular security awareness training, their calculated decision-making and quick response can effectively block deceiving threats.

Security Culture and Its Influence on Employees

Conducting a one-time employee training session for the sake of compliance does not adequately benefit your business’ cybersecurity posture. It is regular security awareness training that can truly protect your business from looming cyberthreats that are constantly on the rise.

The following statistics throw light on why security awareness training is essential in today’s threat landscape:

1. Human errors cause 23 percent of data breaches¹.
2. Over 35 percent of employees do not know about ransomware².
3. Nearly 25 percent of employees have clicked on malicious links without confirming their legitimacy³.

The aim of developing a security-focused culture is to nurture positive security habits among employees. For example, the simple habit of locking one’s computer screen when leaving the workstation unattended can prevent data from being accessed by unauthorized users.

Once you properly train your employees, they will be more aware of the business’ security policies and will realize that their employer’s cybersecurity is their responsibility as well.

 

Tips to Implement Effective Security Awareness Training

 Until recently, companies would impart security awareness training as lectures using a slide deck. Businesses conducted these training sessions once a year or once during induction. However, these sessions proved ineffective because of their uninteresting nature and lack of follow-up sessions.

If you intend to develop a security-focused culture, implementing robust security awareness training is crucial. Here are a few tips that can help you effectively implement security training:

1. Make the training sessions interactive - Your employees will show more interest if you deliver training in high-quality video format since it grabs more attention. Add text content only as a complementary piece to the video. Ensure that the presentation is appealing to your employees so that they do not miss out on important details. Also, make sure your employees can clear their doubts through face-to-face discussions or virtual conversations with subject matter experts.
2. Break the training into smaller modules - Since the attention span of your employees will almost certainly vary from one to another, breaking training sessions into smaller modules will help them retain information faster as a whole. You can regularly send training modules to your employees to ensure they are up to speed on the latest security topics. Smaller units have a better chance of retention than lengthy pieces of content.
3. Facilitate self-paced learning - Give your employees the freedom to learn at their convenience. This, of course, does not mean deadlines should not be set either. Make sure you give your employees sufficient time to complete each training module based on its complexity.
4. Training must include relevant material - The training material must not contain any outdated information. Given how quickly the cyberthreat landscape is changing, the training must be updated regularly and must cover new cyberthreats so hackers don’t end up tricking your employees. Please remember that the content should not be overly technical. The training material must be imparted in an easy-to-understand manner, so employees have no trouble applying it in daily work scenarios.
5. Conduct reviews with quizzes and mock drills - To assess your employees’ preparedness, you must conduct regular tests, including mock drills, that assess alertness based on their response to simulated scams.

 

Transform Your Weakest Link Into Your Prime Defense

 Regular security awareness training can help develop a transformative security culture within your business, thus enabling your employees to detect even sophisticated cyberthreats and undertake adequate action.

We understand that implementing robust security awareness training can be a bit challenging. However, you have nothing to worry about. We can help you seamlessly integrate security awareness training into your business operations to make your employees the first line of defense against existing or imminent cyberthreats. Get in touch with us today and let us get started.

      Article curated and used by permission. Sources:

1. IBM 2020 Cost of Data Breach Report
2. Opinion Matters Survey
3. Help Net Security Magazine