With the cloud becoming more widely used and remote work remaining popular, employees aren’t always going to be protected by technical security measures. Phishing and attacks directed at people rather than technology, still work remarkably well, meaning the only reliable form of protection against such threats is by training your employees and strengthening your human firewall. While educating yourself and your team on cyber security risks has the advantage of adding an additional layer of protection to your business there are also other advantages that you may not have considered. In this blog post, we’ll outline the five advantages that strengthening your human firewall will provide.
You'll help prevent your security from being breached
This is the first and most obvious benefit. The better your team is at both spotting and avoiding cyber threats and errors, the less likely your business is to be attacked. Especially when the vast majority of security breaches are due to employee error. From gaps in your security policies to phishing attacks, when you strengthen your human firewall, these are much less likely to occur..
You’ll meet compliance requirements
The government wants you to strengthen your human firewall too. This will vary depending on your industry but whether you’re complying with GDPR, MiFID ii, or any other set of regulations, there will certainly be criteria that pertain to your employee’s security awareness.
You’ll give your customers more confidence
Your customers can be just as concerned about your cyber security as you are; their data is often at stake too. When you demonstrate to them that you’re strengthening your human firewall, you’ll not only gain kudos with your customers, but you can potentially build trust that can be leveraged later on and bring in further business.
You'll help build a culture of security
One level up from a team simply being aware of security best practices, is having good cyber security engrained in the culture of a business. This is what all CIOs aim for. When your team is bristling with good cyber security culture, good security habits are present in every scenario that needs them. Say a team member starts to work from home for the first time, their cyber security common sense will kick in before any specific training needs to.
Your employees will appreciate it
Many employees appreciate most forms of education and cyber security education is no different. It’s well documented that when an employee has more tools to respond to problems, they feel empowered and rewarded in their career. This, in turn, leads to higher employee retention, higher team productivity and, ultimately, a better bottom line.
One last thing to note
In the event of an attack, and you making a claim, it’s highly likely that your insurer will only pay out if your team members have a certain level of cyber security training. Therefore, any cyber-attack insurance you have will be useless if you don’t strengthen your human firewall.
Whilst your human firewall is important, it’s not the only piece of the cyber security pie. So, whether it’s ransomware protection, basic firewalls and antivirus, or a complete cyber security defence strategy, Novem is here to offer whatever your business needs to stay protected.
Click below to view our complete cyber security offering and start protecting your business today.