If you’ve read our article on the role of human error in cyber security breaches, you’ll know that human error is the leading cause of over 90% of breaches. That’s a frightening statistic, but also a highly useful one.
Since the vast majority of corporate data breaches are due to human error, it’s easy to know where to start when creating a plan to protect your company. By just addressing human error, you can make a successful breach against your organisation a whole lot less likely.
So, how do you reduce human error in your business? Read on to find our top 5 tips.
1. Principle of least privilege
The principle of least privilege is the computing version of the need-to-know principle. This means that every user starts with the minimum privileges, and are allowed more privileges on their user accounts as they require them.
By using the principle of least privilege you reduce the amount of actions that each of your employees can perform, while allowing them access to everything they need to perform their role. This means that if an employee’s account becomes compromised, unauthorised access will be limited to only the operations that the specific employee has the privilege to perform.
2. Awareness campaigns
Much of human error comes down to employees not knowing the risks. Even after training sessions, cyber security knowledge can quickly be forgotten if your employees aren’t reminded of the risks involved in their day-to-day operations.
Raising awareness is most easily performed with poster campaigns and email reminders that could include general basics, tips and tricks, or specific advice more directly related to your company’s operations.
3. Reduce the password load
While passwords are an irreplaceable part of cyber security, humans are notoriously bad for coping with them. Our brains can only remember a limited number of passwords, which means that password-overloaded users will always go for the easiest - and least secure - passwords they can get away with.
While a strong password policy is essential, the best way to reduce human error around passwords is to reduce the number of passwords in the first place. This can be achieved by using password managers - with multi-factor authentication turned on to increase security - and by switching to devices with biometric authentication such as fingerprint ID.
4. Turn your security culture from reactive to proactive
Cyber security tends to be something that the average employee forgets until the worst happens - a breach hits your company. Encourage your employees to spend time learning about cyber risks, and reward them for being proactive in finding potential risks and countermeasures.
A proactive security culture will help ensure that cyber security is always taken into consideration when your company makes changes to the tools it uses or the way it operates, and also goes a long way to demonstrating to clients and customers that you can be trusted with their data.
5. Continuous training
To keep employees engaged with cyber security requirements and maintain awareness about different types of risks, training should be continuous and flexible. A good training program will focus on identifying the specific risks that your employees and company is vulnerable to, and train your employees on the most important aspects of security based on their unique risk profiles.
Click below to explore our individually-tailored, password-free cyber security awareness training today and see how you can turn your employees into your best safeguard against the growing threat landscape.
