When it comes to cybersecurity, the weakest link could be any one of your employees which is why establishing cybersecurity policies and staff training are critical. Learn more at http://www.hrp.net/2017/02/train-employees-to-avoid-cybercrime/

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Train Employees to Avoid Cybercrime

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In an era of hyper-connectedness and a burgeoning global cybercrime
industry, you can't afford to hope you'll just be lucky and avoid a successful
attack. It's essential to establish policies and procedures to minimize risk and
train employees on how to protect your company.

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The basic kinds of criminal acts you need to guard against are:
• Theft of proprietary or sensitive business data that could be sold to
competitors or other hackers,
• Installation of "ransomware" that locks you out of your own data until you
pay the cybercriminals' demands,
• Malicious damage to your system, such as crashing your website to
prevent customers from accessing it (often referred to as a "denial-of-
service attack," under which hackers overwhelm your site with data
requests), and
• Theft of employees' personal information to eventually steal from them.

4. Internal Threats
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Building a defensive strategy starts with recognizing that, even with the best
technical external barriers in place, you could fall victim to an employee who
goes rogue, or even joins your organization specifically with cybercrime as a
goal.
While unlikely, it's essential for your hiring managers to be mindful of these
risks when reviewing employment applications — particularly those for
positions that involve open access to sensitive company data. It's just another
checklist item when reviewing applicants with unusual employment histories.
Checking references and conducting background checks is also a good idea.

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In the same way, it's generally advisable to include a statement in your
employee handbook informing employees that their communications are
stored in a backup system, and that you reserve the right to monitor and
examine their company computers and emails (sent and received) on your
system.
When such monitoring systems are in place, prudence or suspicious activity
will dictate when they should be ramped up.

6. DHS Tips for Employees and IT Staff
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It can also be useful to establish a policy encouraging employees to report any
suspicious computer-based activities they observe around them. Of course,
you don't want to foster employee paranoia or promote the spread of
baseless accusations. But deploying more eyes and ears can serve both to
forestall cyber bad behavior and detect it, if it occurs.
The largest threat isn't that employees may intentionally commit cybercrime,
but that they might inadvertently open the door to external cybercriminals.

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That's why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) considers cybercrime
serious enough to offer eight tips for employers to pass along to their
employees:
1. Read and abide by the company's Internet use policy.
2. Make passwords complex — use a combination of numbers, symbols, and
letters (uppercase and lowercase).
3. Change passwords regularly (every 45 to 90 days).
4. Guard user names, passwords, or other computer or website access
codes, even among coworkers.
5. Exercise caution when opening emails from unknown senders, and don't
open attachments or links from unverifiable sources.
6. Don't install or connect any personal software or hardware to the
organization's network or hardware without permission from the IT
department.
7. Make electronic and physical backups or copies of critical work.
8. Report all suspicious or unusual computer problems to the IT department.

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Employees that follow these steps faithfully can serve as an additional layer of
protection against cyberattacks.
For those people who are charged with the responsibility to maintain a secure
system, the DHS offers the following advice:
• Implement a layered defense strategy that includes technical,
organizational and operational controls,
• Establish clear policies and procedures for employee use of the
organization's information technologies,
• Coordinate cyberincident response planning with existing disaster
recovery and business continuity plans across the organization,
• Implement technical defenses, such as firewalls, intrusion detection
systems and Internet content filtering,
• Update the existing anti-virus software often,

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• Follow organizational guidelines and security regulations,
• Regularly download vendor security patches for all software,
• Change the manufacturer's default passwords on all software,
• Encrypt data and use two-factor authentication where possible,
• If a wireless network is used, make sure that it's secure, and
• Monitor, log and analyze successful and attempted intrusions to the
company's systems and networks.

10. Cybercrime Insurance
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What else can be done? It's often a good idea for businesses to protect their
computer systems further by buying cybercrime insurance. Alone, this won't
prevent victimization, but it can offset some of the financial damage in case of
a successful attack.
In addition, most insurers perform a rigorous risk assessment before issuing a
policy and setting premiums. The results of such an assessment can be quite
eye-opening for business owners.
If you decide against buying insurance, it might be useful to have a consultant
conduct a cybercrime exposure risk assessment anyway. The growth, ubiquity
and high cost of cybercrime has spawned a large industry of cybersecurity
consulting firms. And, unless your company already has a robust IT staff with
expertise in cyber-risk mitigation, you'll likely save time and money engaging a
third-party vendor.

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