During the rush of a normal work week, cybersecurity isn’t generally the first thing on your mind. While everyone knows cybersecurity is important generally, good cybersecurity habits are not practiced in the workplace. Companies that don’t have a good cybersecurity culture are often much more susceptible to being victims of cyberattacks. Ensuring your staff is knowledgeable and competent in basic cybersecurity practices can prevent your company from ransomware, malware and other forms of cyberattacks. Let’s explore some of the reasons why cybersecurity in the workplace specifically is crucial to businesses in 2020.
95% of cybersecurity breaches are due to human error.
Cybersecurity should be the business of everyone in your company; you are only as strong as strong as your weakest link. By educating your staff, the chances of a cybersecurity breach diminish significantly. One major step that all companies need to take is to ensure employees are cyber literate. This means that staff should be able to know and implement the basics of cybersecurity; this can include phishing, password security and recognizing external threats. By having a cyber literate workforce, the chances of an employee downloading a malicious file or compromising your company’s security decrease exponentially.
By 2020 there will be over 200 billion connected devices globally.
Yes, you read that right: 200 billion devices. To illustrate the magnitude of this statistic, this means 25 devices per 100 people in the U.S. These devices connected to the internet range from routers and cameras to tablets and phones we use everyday. As you could imagine, the potential for a cyberattack with this many devices increases significantly. This also means there are many connected devices in the workplace, which means increased vulnerability for companies. Companies not only need to follow general cybersecurity practices, they additionally need to adhere to specific practices for certain devices to ensure safety.
The average cost of a data breach will be over $5 million in 2020.
Data breaches aren’t cheap. With nearly half of victims of breaches being small businesses, it’s likely that a data breach can shut down a business. The cost generally ranges from $1 to $9 million, but it depends on the country a business is in and the specific industry. The U.S., Middle East and other western countries have higher breach costs along with the healthcare industry specifically; these breaches can reach up to $10 million per instance. The cost of breaches alone should be a deterrent for companies to ensure they are following cybersecurity practices. Educating and taking simple steps to ensure your security is very affordable for most businesses and can prevent the majority of cyberattacks from your business.
