What is the biggest threat to your business?
Most of the time organizations turn their focus toward outside threats that attempt to find vulnerabilities in the system. However, sometimes the biggest vulnerabilities come from the inside. An insider threat refers to a trusted individual inside your system revealing sensitive data either willingly or unwillingly. This could be through a malicious act of an employee trying to profit off of revealing corporate data, or a simple malware link that an employee accidentally clicks on.
Phishing is defined as a form of social engineering that seeks to "trick" individuals into revealing private data through a combination of psychological and technical means. These phishing attempts are often sent via email and contain a call to action requesting an individual to provide information or click on a shady link. Such emails are typically personalized and designed to trick employees into thinking they come from a higher up or associate in an organization. With phishing attacks accounting for over 40% of security incidents (per IBM) it's important to tackle this issue head on.
As far as insider threats go it tops the list in terms of importance because your employees won't even know they are a threat until it’s too late. From July to December 2024, nearly 50% of users were targeted by email-based attacks at least once, increasing the risk of your employees becoming insider threats with every click.
How does a business prepare for the eventuality of a phishing attempt?
It is no longer a matter of if your organization will be targeted but when. Some of the best ways to protect your business may also be some of the most simple and practical ways. Making sure that employees regularly change their password is an important habit to develop in addition to making sure passwords aren't reused across multiple applications. Good password hygiene goes a long way in securing your business. In addition to strong passwords setting up MFA on all employee accounts can be a great way to add an extra layer of defense to your accounts.
Lastly, the greatest way to inform your employees about the potential risks of phishing is to make sure that they undergo security awareness training. Through training your organization as a whole can be better prepared to identify and respond to an assortment of cyber threats.
All it takes is one wrong click to put your business at risk!
CorpInfoTech, a Managed Service Provider (MSP) with over 25 years in the SMB space, is a trusted partner for business pursuing compliance and cybersecurity. We are a CMMC Level 2 (C3PAO) certified MSP and a Cyber AB Registered Provider Organization (RPO). Also, as the first CIS accredited organization, we help organizations implement the CIS controls as it pertains to CMMC and your overall cybersecurity posture. CorpInfoTech is your trusted partner for secure, compliant growth in every changing digital landscape.