Data Security Threats Every SMB Must Be Aware of
Human Error and Employee Negligence
While most CIOs at SMBs are generally accepting and understanding that mistakes happen, they must be more stringent when it comes to managing risky negligent employee behaviors in this era of mobility and accessibility. Employee negligence puts a company or organization’s critical business data at risk of being stolen by cybercriminals or malicious employees. Examples of this negligent behavior include:
- Leaving computer systems unattended
- Weak passwords (“password” or “12345”) or passwords that aren’t frequently changed
- Opening email attachments or clicking hyperlinks embedded with spam
- Visiting restricted websites
In the modern-day BYOD workplace, more people are doing daily business on their personal laptops, iPads and Blackberrys. They are also carrying around portable media like thumb drives, USB sticks and CDs.
These devices are not always backed up or secured by IT administrators. There is not only the potential for these devices to be lost or stolen but there is also a very high probability that employees using them are also accessing personal email, downloading music, browsing the web, playing games and hanging out on Facebook. This makes sensitive data susceptible to malware, viruses and hackers. All of this substantially ups the likelihood of data loss incidents.
Prevent data loss. CLICK HERE for a free network assessment.