Avoiding Cybersecurity Risks From The Workplace

Data leakage, loss of confidential information, malware infections, or slips in email, or social networks are some of the risks that we face in the workplace. It is essential to know the most common situations in the company related to the safety of the employees’ work environment to minimize data loss or loss.

Let’s see below which are the most common scenarios that we can find:

• Bad Practices: Not all data leaks are malicious. The vast majority occur in an employee’s workplace due to bad practices when using the tools at their disposal. Raising awareness and insisting on their safe use is always the best bet for the employee. Implement a comprehensive training plan through the Awareness Kit.
• Email: Many of the email management applications have the destination address auto-complete feature enabled, which can lead to accidentally sending information to the wrong recipients.
• Social Networks: Are a double-edged sword for companies; on the one hand, they increase the corporate image’s projection. On the other, that extra contribution of information about new projects or clients can be the perfect source of information for them to get involved—social engineering attacks by cybercriminals.
• Social Engineering: Social engineering, those employees with less technical knowledge and more unconcerned about their work environment are the most vulnerable, becoming the main target of cyber attackers, as a gateway to the company. Re-educating the employee and reviewing and reinforcing the security measures in their workplace will help prevent future security incidents.
• Ransomware: Is a fashionable malware that is causing significant damage to businesses. Encrypt or make information inaccessible and ask for a ransom to release it. It is essential to know it and be aware of a possible infection, applying the appropriate measures to avoid information requests.
• Use of Personal Devices: The use of mobile phones, computers, or tablets for personal use in the business environment is associated with a series of security problems. Generally, these devices do not have the controls and protections necessary to work in a corporate environment. It is required to define and limit their use and warn employees of the security risks in their use.

What Can We Do

Given the above scenarios, it is logical to ask how we can avoid risks and the security measures we can apply to protect the workplace. But we can also pay attention to the application of some of these low-cost implementation and maintenance measures:

• Obligation to maintain confidentiality about any information to which the employee has access during his work in the company indefinitely.
• Obligation to report any security incident related to the job, either in the company itself or abroad.
• The prohibition of publishing or sharing passwords.
• Obligation to block the session when absent from work.
• Limitation on the use of online storage services.
• They are making proper use of removable storage media.
• Prohibition of the alteration of the computer configuration and the installation of unauthorized applications.
• Obligation to keep work documentation when absent from work and at the end of the working day (clean table policy).
• Obligation to destroy documentation through secure mechanisms.
• Obligation not to abandon documentation in printers or scanners.
• Regulations for the use of the Internet and corporate email.
• Regulations for the use of personal devices.

Technical standards must complement the organizational measures seen above by the IT departments of the companies. To check that you comply with everything, you can follow the checklist of the Job Protection Policy. But let’s remember! raising employee awareness of cybersecurity is the best way to save time and costs for the company.