Are You Doing Enough to Prevent Risk? (Probably Not)

There are plenty of risks that today’s businesses regularly deal with, particularly in terms of cybersecurity. This year, a panel of experts shared some human risk management insights at the Cybsafe Impact 2024 USA conference. Let’s review some of the topics they touched on.

Cybersecurity Training Needs to Modernize and Start Sooner

Nowadays, it’s a common sight to see families out in public where the parents are taking care of business and the kid is engrossed in a device by their side. From the home to the classroom, today’s youth are more plugged in than ever before… and let’s face it, there’s no going back.

Despite this, the vast majority of cybersecurity training and awareness—at least, any beyond the most rudimentary basics—still happens in the workplace, at least 18 to 20 years in. The Cybsafe Impact panelists put forward that this training should begin far sooner so that the security habits we all need to maintain nowadays are instilled when they really need to be.

Now, as your team has missed the boat in terms of childhood training, you need to make sure you remedy this with regular training opportunities. 

ROI Needs to Be Properly Framed

It is important to understand and measure your business’ return on investment in effectively all aspects of your operations, and risk prevention and management is perhaps at the top of the list. However, the mass of information can make it hard to identify what data is most valuable and important.

Is it most important to track how many viruses antivirus blocked in a given week, or will some other metric be more valuable? Could your risk prevention strategy be improved by tracking how many phishing emails your team caught?

These are the wrong questions, at least for risk prevention. Focusing on this (largely impossible to measure) metric won’t help you that much, so we have to look for metrics that will help you manage your risk. That can actually be done much more simply than looking at analytics and charts. You should look directly at how your staff handles their security responsibilities to identify and correct any issues present. 

It's Not Just About Training—It's About Inspiring Lasting Behavioral Change 

In simple terms, training someone is different from inspiring them to change their behavior.

The key is to gather as much data as possible to identify broader patterns and trends that can drive positive change in your business. Recognizing these patterns enables you to leverage them in innovative ways for your business' success.

One thing the Cybsafe panel didn’t emphasize is the value of having a trusted IT partner to assist with risk prevention and other technology-related needs.

Contact us today at 724-473-3950 to discuss how we can help prepare your business to handle cybersecurity challenges.