Cybersecurity training is important, given everything has been digitalized.

It affects the reputation of a company forever when its data gets leaked. When ransomware gets installed on the PCs of a company, it means that it has to pay anything to get rid of such software. Every company can have a cybersecurity team, but they say prevention is better than cure.

Therefore, the employees must also be trained in cybersecurity. The role of employees, no matter what position they are in, cannot be ignored in their role in cybersecurity. Employees can easily be targeted because their login credentials allow entry into the system. Once this happens, an email can be sent to every employee of the company to pay a ransom to the hackers. This is a serious situation but can be avoided with cybersecurity training. Hence, no employee in the company can be avoided when it comes to cybersecurity. 

The employees might not have time to finish the course at a stretch. They need to break off because other work comes in between. In that case, they should be able to continue with the course. They should be given a gist of what they had studied and start again. 

These are the main threats to the cybersecurity in a company:

How can PCs be hacked?

• Brute force algorithms:

Brute force algorithms crack passwords through the use of bots. But when the length of passwords is alright, then they can’t work. Make sure your passwords are long and contain special characters, numbers and letters, at least more than 8 characters. A password of 8 characters can also be cracked easily, and it takes even less time to crack a password shorter than that.

Moreover, employees should be taught about the importance of passwords. Once a password is not strong, it can easily be hacked and create a problem for the company. Employees should be taught that passwords have to be altered regularly before they are hacked.

• Stolen passwords:

The passwords also should be kept isolated from the public. Problems occur when passwords are stolen because they were written somewhere. Also, they can be stolen online when someone gets access to your system. Hence, the system must always be locked so that someone with login credentials can only get access to it and does not write that password anywhere.

Steps to prevent hacking:

• No installation of external software:

Employees should not be allowed to install any software on the system without proper permission. This is because such software can contain viruses, which can prove to be deadly for the company. It can affect all the files in the system. Anybody should not be allowed to bring CDs or USBs into the company without proper authorization and install malware. In the case of hacking, all the important company data should have already been backed up.

This is important because there can be other problems besides hacking, such as hardware failure. So, in that case, companies won’t lose all data that has been backed up.

• No clicking on phishing emails:

Although employees might be tempted to click on phishing emails and may do so, it’s also the responsibility of the company to teach them not to do so. It is because such employees should be warned, not terminated, and the company should ensure that its cybersecurity training policies are strengthened. If people are not trained about things like how to update their anti-security software, this can always cause problems because such software prevents them from clicking on phishing emails.

• Restricted access to card details:

The payment cards can also cause a problem when they are being used on office systems.

If card details are leaked, it can cause a huge loss to the company. Hence, the company must have very strict policies about where the cards are used. For example, they cannot be used with company Wi-Fi, to which so many people have access.

Also, even though someone might have access to your card details, make sure two-factor authentication is enabled so that someone with OTP can only use the card. This prevents the possibility of the card getting hacked and used. Apart from such security arrangements, fix the responsibility of employees if a card gets hacked because it’s their duty to use it carefully.

E-learning can teach such simple procedures to employees through video simulations. Employees can be given branching scenarios to know what to do in a certain situation. 

Cybersecurity training must be a necessity of a company because it can cause problems when the employees are only trained once a year. There can be new threats developing all the time, so it’s better that there must be cybersecurity training events happen at least once every two months. That’s how companies can prevent falling prey to cybersecurity threats.