How your employees could cause a data breach.

You don’t want to think that your staff are capable of costing the company thousands of pounds in damages due to a data breach.

But the reality is that employees who don’t pay attention, or even worse, just don’t care, are the leading cause of breaches in the UK.

So what does it look like in everyday life? Would you be able to spot the warning signs?

The one who didn’t pay attention in training

On their first day, a new employee is usually taken through processes and procedures. This normally includes health and safety and company policies. Once of those policies could be how they are to use their devices and how to stay safe online.

Nowadays, phishing emails can be incredibly hard to spot. We’ve seen it. Clients see an email from ‘Pam’ in acccounts with their pay slip attached as normal. They click away and before you know it someone has access to company data and sensitive information. By the way did you spot the mistake?

It can take a while for someone to even notice that a hacker has got into the system. This could not only cost you money, but if it was a serious breach, it could cost you the business.

The one who was looking for revenge

We would hate to think that someone would be angry enough to purposefully damage the systems, but this has happened as well.

All it takes is on disgruntled employee, who knows the systems, to wipe important data or even click on malicious links.

The one who forgot to lock their devices

Hands up if you have ever nipped away from your desk for two minutes and left your PC or laptop unlocked. Now hands up if you have done that in a public place. Are you guilty?

There could be an opportunistic thief sat in the same coffee shop or restaurant as you whilst you pop up to the bar to grab yourself another coffee. All it takes is for your back to be turned for a second, and no one else around to stop it, for someone to snag that laptop.

Does it contain sensitive data? Finance details? Does that person now have access to everything that could put the company at risk?

If you leave your PC in work unlocked and someone from example two was in the room alone whilst you were gone, they could easily wreak havoc on the system but it would look like it came from you.

How can your business stop any of the above from happening?

CSG takes IT security seriously and we have several solutions that can protect your business from employee error. This could be email security, firewalls, and user access control and malware protection.