Do Your Employees Have Any of These Hackable Habits?

Habits don’t go quickly. And, some habits can cost you a business, if not broken on time.

It is crucial that you recognize the hackable employee habits early as they’re on the front lines of information security. While your company may have several cybersecurity policies in place, protections fall apart, if your employees aren’t paying enough attention.

While hacking a large organization may seem more attractive, smaller organizations are an easy target — they have fewer controls and are easier to infiltrate. Your employees’ actions play a big part in keeping your company secure.

If any of your employees are stuck in the following habits, it’s time to address these issues as soon as possible:

Using Weak and Same Passwords Repeatedly

Call it a cardinal sin. In addition to only using one password for all your accounts, using a weak password amplifies your security risks. Most users take up the easy route, use their pet’s name or some other easily dug-up detail as a password — assuming it’s really not easy for a hacker.

Make sure that your employees don’t do the same. Set certain standards for the passwords and suggest to your employees that they try alternatives each time they create a new account. You can ask them to use paraphrases or a password manager if they have a hard time remembering multiple complex passwords.

A strong password contains at least ten characters and includes the number, symbols, and capital and lowercase letters. Your company can also have multi-factor authentication when employees try to access sensitive network areas.

Using Personal Storage for Company’s Data

Cloud Computing is extremely popular these days. Though it brings considerable benefits to your organization, there is a sleuth of issues that also comes along. One such is the tendency of employees to store company files to their personal cloud solutions.

Not that your employees are doing it with bad intentions. Some employees want to put a little bit of extra time to a project, and they’re working on after hours. So, they take work home with them. Unfortunately, this means they’re also taking data from out of the company’s protective walls. While it’s great that your employees want to accomplish more, their personal cloud storage is not the right place to keep your business’ data. It’s highly insecure practice, and cybercriminals can hack their personal storage accounts much more easily than the company.

Sharing Login Credentials

Your employees are victims of convenience. When colleagues want to gain quick access to some business information, more often, they share credentials instead of creating unique logins for every user. This habit leaves an organization vulnerable to a data breach.

Whenever new employees join the company, they should get a checklist of services and applications; they might be using daily. Your human resources and I.T. department can work together for onboarding and create a separate account for users with software set.

However, in the real-world, credential sharing is almost impossible to avoid. You should look for SSO services that support the secure sharing of credentials. It can help in linking the shared account to the individual but hiding the actual password from the users. This way, users can revoke access to users when they leave the organization.

Installing Applications without Consulting

Many times, employees download unauthorized applications on their computers and work devices. It can also happen when they subscribe to Software as a Service (SaaS) applications without approval from the I.T. department.

We know your employees are glued to their workstations for more than 8 hours a day, and they can treat their workstation as their personal device. The intentions may be harmless — perhaps they thought of downloading a popular music-streaming application or a consumer-file sharing tool, but doing so without permission puts your company at risk.

There are many reasons businesses don’t allow certain applications. It could be to ensure productivity, consistency, protect against malware or other security threats etc. Your I.T. teams must advise people and act as a technology gatekeeper.

 

Want security I.T. consultation for your organization? Get in touch with GRIP I.T. team.