How secure is your business? Although you have tried to ensure that your critical data stays out of cybercriminals’ hands, cybersecurity is a complex problem. Without constant, routine work updating your security methods and strategies, you may find yourself behind the times and more vulnerable than ever.
There is real cause for concern. Cybercriminals are becoming more advanced with every passing day, and many cybersecurity experts are deeply worried that we aren’t winning the arm’s race. Even a brief, cursory look at some of most exciting and transformative technologies currently under development show a troubling trend.
Whether dealing with facial recognition or big data analytics, the most advanced tools of the trade are equally available to both cybersecurity professionals and cybercriminals. These developments, combined with some of the most common security mistakes office workers still make, can compromise even the best-planned security strategy.
Office Security Mistakes You Could Be Making Right Now
The most common office security mistakes that companies make range from ignoring developments in cybersecurity to accidentally opening the door for hackers. Businesses across the United States are falling prey to both high-tech and low-tech attacks.
1. Not Running Business Continuity Drills
You may have a comprehensive business continuity plan in place. The instructions and the application of company resources described in your plan could – in theory, at least – save your company from the brink of destruction when faced with a major catastrophe.
But in practice, even the best-laid plans can suffer from unexpected obstacles. If you don’t run through actual, physical disaster drills that force your company employees to test emergency resources, you may find out too late that your business continuity plan is actually not as comprehensive as you thought.
When it comes to network infrastructure and corporate data, businesses often suffer from a lack of bandwidth. You have backups of all of your business data in the cloud, which is great, but you can’t use the data effectively to keep your business running because you don’t have enough bandwidth.
2. Letting Tailgaters into Your Facility
Tailgaters – also known as piggybackers – can access supervised areas in a corporate facility using “the oldest trick in the book.”
It is not an elegant or a sophisticated tactic, but it is a very effective one. An intruder simply slips past an authorized employee holding the door out for them. What seems like a polite gesture is in fact a security threat that experts still haven’t been able to mitigate – until now.
The problem with tailgating is that it takes advantage of polite behavior. Employees generally don’t feel comfortable confronting strangers or denying people access. Most businesses simply try to warn employees against tailgating and hope that their entire organization pays attention, with varied results.
But modern video surveillance and facial recognition systems can tag and identify people as they cross thresholds into protected areas. This allows a security professional to immediately know when unauthorized access occurs and to take quick action to mitigate it.
3. Not Implementing an Email Security Policy
Email phishing isn’t going anywhere. It remains the most widespread, profitable, and sophisticated attack vector for cybercriminals in the corporate space. Every single employee needs to be aware of phishing and know how to identify phishing attempts. This means using specific examples to show your staff what to look for.
This could mean empowering entry-level employees to call directors and board members to verify requests for sensitive information. Considering that many phishing attempts use compromised business emails to impersonate CEOs and intimidate lower-level employees into giving up data, annoying your executive team is by far the lesser of two evils.
All of this needs to take place within a single, standardized document serving as your email security policy. Your entire organization needs to operate in an organized, unified manner concerning email security. With a comprehensive approach, unusual requests are immediately flagged and sent to the security team for investigation.
Have Our Team Audit Your Security Policies
Running drills, updating security policies, and investigating office security incidents all take a great deal of time and effort. Most organizations simply don’t have the manpower to successfully mitigate these risks without sacrificing important functions elsewhere.
This is when hiring a managed IT vendor can offer key strategic long-term benefits. Offload the time-consuming work of verifying security to us, and free up your team for other tasks.
Our team can help you deploy a robust security solution for your office. Schedule a security audit with us to find out how!
