Security Awareness Tip #1
Humans are ‘Endpoints’, and they, like a network, need to be secured., As a Human Endpoint engages with a phishing email, suddenly, a secure network can quickly become insecure, with malicious actors gaining access and committing crimes. Therefore, companies need to consider implementing Security Awareness Programs and conduct internal training to support their overall security posture and reduce their risks. No industry is an exception for cybercriminals, but as highlighted in the recent investigations, some industries are more likely to be affected by phishing because their users are underprepared to react properly to this kind of messages.
For example, Financial Workers are most likely to fall into the net of a phishing attack, as 29% of them admit they clicked on a phishing email at work, a significantly higher percentage than the general average (11%).
Why are they so easy to lure? Let’s see some reasons:
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- The company expects them to respond quickly to emails, making them less likely to question the legitimacy of messages;
- Employees are using their phones to respond to emails, and the small screens make it more difficult to identify a phish;
- Employees are feeling tired and are more likely to make mistakes at work;
Each industry has its own unique dialect and processes. When Cyber Criminals learn this, they become more effective at masquerading as ‘one of them’ and ultimately luring even savvy users into providing access. , The more the Human Endpoints critique and interrogate each request and email, the safer they become and the more they lower corporate risk. Security Awareness Training and Education.
Are your users still susceptible to Phishing?
If your Security Awareness Training Program is not Authentic – your trained users are still susceptible to Phishing!
Authentic Security Awareness takes the concept of General Security Awareness and heightens it by incorporating specific situations that could happen to your employees if someone targeted YOUR COMPANY and was an expert in YOUR INDUSTRY.
Most training companies provide massive catalogs of general awareness. This is good, however, more often than not, they are too general to mimic the best phishes and also the newest types of phishes. Therefore, when a very good (‘Authentic’) phish is launched, your users are not savvy enough to avoid it, no matter how much they read about this risk.
How does Symbol Security manage this problem? (and how can you address it?)
In our training model, we help companies launch custom spoofs. Custom spoofs are not generic ‘Internal IT credential validation’ or ‘Big Brand password reset’ emails – they look like real emails you receive from your most trusted contacts. So, by implementing a Security Awareness Training program from Symbol that includes Authentic Phishing, employees and organizations can heighten their awareness significantly, and avoid mistakes that lead to potentially damaging breaches.
