Clearly, with the pandemic and the amount of strain it placed on companies and their employees, 2020 was a very challenging year for everyone to navigate. Operations shifted towards remote work capabilities quickly, with many organizations not even capable of formulating clear, coherent policies to protect their critical data and applications. This had consequences in the form of data breaches, which were fairly widespread and even affected the federal government recently. With 2020 on its way out, it’s worth taking a second to reflect on the lessons that the year taught us and consider how to apply these lessons to the way we approach insider risk management in the new year.
The Importance of Strategies Designed for the Remote Work Environment
Most of the world shifted to remote work as the pandemic caused us to rethink our relationships with our offices and physical work locations. While many organizations are planning to bring their workers back to the office when the pandemic subsides, many prominent, Fortune 500 companies have already announced their intention to keep workers in the remote environment. We had seen remote work becoming an option for many prior to the pandemic – now it seems as though its momentum won’t be stopped. However, it’s important to keep in mind just how different good data security practices are for remote work compared to on-location work. You and your team need to think carefully and devise a coherent strategy to help protect your data, applications, and IP from the unique insider threat scenarios that could turn up in a remote work environment.
Social Engineering is Still a Serious Threat
Nowadays, complex hacking techniques and software loopholes may seem to be prevalent in media coverage of data breaches. However, social engineering attacks such as phishing, which have been around for a while, still figure into a large number of insider incidents. In fact, the recent hack of the federal government was thought to be caused by a phishing attack by a group aligned with a foreign government. It’s still important to cover social engineering attacks when training employees on your security best practices and encourage them to practice good security routines such as using strong passwords, changing passwords often, and carefully scrutinizing suspicious emails.
Continue to Learn
If nothing else, the events of 2020 have gone to show us just how important it is to continue learning about data security and insider risk management. Cybersecurity professionals will constantly need to learn new best practices to stay one step ahead of potential insiders, and other workplace employees can help their organizations out in their daily security operations by practicing good security techniques, and the best way to have them do this is to provide regular training sessions tailored to their situations.
Learn More Advanced Tips and Strategies to Manage Insider Risk at ITMG’s Advanced Solutions Seminar
ITMG’s upcoming Advanced Solutions Seminar is designed to teach cybersecurity professionals how to achieve organizational security with our proven model to manage insider risk, the RiskTKO model. Reserve your spot today by visiting our training page here!
Contact ITMG to Assess Your Current Capabilities and Develop Strategies and Protocols Designed to Help Your Company Mitigate Your Insider Risk
ITMG is an industry leader in helping organizations throughout the United States strengthen their insider risk management programs and secure sensitive data and intellectual property. Our team of bona fide experts has the real-world experience necessary to plan out and create holistic security solutions tailored to the special needs and risks in your industry. Contact ITMG today to learn more about how we can help! You can also visit our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages for more updates and insights into the world of insider risk management.