If you’ve read some of our blogs you probably have noticed by now that for nearly every cyber security threat out there, one of the most important recommendations we give to prevent it is to educate every employee that works at your company.

But what does this actually mean? What do you have to tell your employees. You may know the basics of proper cyber security, like not going on sketchy websites or clicking links on emails from people you don’t know, but are there things you are forgetting or don’t even know about? Lucky for you, in this blog we will detail what you must educate your employees about to transform them into veritable IT network protectors.

Keep your desk clean!

Yes, we mean your actual, physical desk. I’m sure we’ve all worked with at least one person who had their username and password on a sticky note in plain sight right on their desk. This is such an unnecessarily risky, and frankly dumb, idea. Even if you get along with your coworkers, all it takes is one person to steal your account information, whether it be out of malicious intent or sheer morbid curiosity. Thieves hide in plain sight, they could even be the nicest person you work with – you never know.

Also take into account people who don’t work in your company who may pass by your desk for any reason. Family members of coworkers, maintenance people or other visitors. Even if you do trust your coworkers, always remember a coworker can turn into a jilted and bitter ex-coworker in the blink of an eye!

Give a heads up on new risks

New cyber threats are coming out every day, as well as the different modes of transportation. There are phone scams, email scams, man-in-the-middle attacks, phony website scams, and countless others. If an employee sees that they were the target of a hacker, even if it was unsuccessful, they should notify the executives at the company of the attempted breach so they can let everyone else know.

In addition to alerting your entire company on what to look out for, it also keeps them alert of any other attempted breaches. Maybe an employee will read their emails a little more carefully if they knew that their company was recently a target of an email scam.

Mobile device security

Smartphones get viruses and malware the same way work computers do. Businesses in every industry are doing work on the go, and employees have to be able to access work applications on their phones. Any employee that has access to the company’s data or software through their phone needs to have mobile protection.

This includes encryption on all data pertaining to the company, a way to remotely lock and monitor the device, and a way to remotely wipe the phone. Look into hiring a cloud services provider to fully take advantage of these security applications.

For more information on how the cloud can help protect your business and educate your employees from the risks of cybercrime, check out the TOSS C3 website or call us anytime at 1-888-884-8677.