Summer is here, and with it, an influx of new hires that include many recent graduates, seasonal employees, and summer interns. It’s an exciting time for all parties. However, it’s important to remember that the largest cybersecurity risk that small and medium sized businesses are faced with happens to be vulnerabilities presented by its own employees.
This internal risk from individual employees is at its highest during the ‘new hire season.’ When all these new hires arrive to work, it becomes the employers’ responsibility to make sure they are not opening the security gates for bad actors to easily access valuable information. And, MSPs, acting as an adviser and an extension of the client’s team, is also responsible.
So…. what’s an MSP to do about new hires?
A simple way for MSPs to ensure their client’s employees are well-equipped in today’s cybersecurity climate is by offering security awareness training.
Security awareness training is critical for all new hires
While your customers will be eager to get their new team members started on projects, it’s important to note that their contributions may be in vain if they happen to be the unknowing victim of a major threat. You don’t want the new finance intern who was just trained to complete wire transfers to vendors being tricked into sending funds into the hands of a bad actor.
Hackers are starting to realize that tricking a human into giving up information is much easier and efficient for them compared to trying to defeat advanced technology, and they’re capitalizing on it. Even the best technology can do little to stop bad actors from accessing data when it is voluntarily offered to them by a well-intentioned employee.
To get ahead of this, ensure that your customers are employing a security awareness training program. This can convert employees from being your clients’ biggest security liability to adding a valuable line of defense against today’s malicious cybercriminals.
What should the training consist of?
A vital part of any security awareness training program is helping employees gain the ability to recognize phishing and social engineering attacks, so that they don’t fall victim to them. Security training should not end at simply being able to identify these attacks, however. It should provide simulated attacks to truly test these employees’ knowledge and security awareness.
The training should also be continuous and ongoing, rather than occurring over a short period of time when the employees will know to expect it. Employees also must now what to do when they encounter a cybersecurity threat in their email inbox. Instruction on how to report (and if necessary, remove) a cyber attack to the right people using the correct protocol should be included in the training program.
Our Managed PhishLine end user security awareness training service provides simulated attacks to help employees learn how to identify these threats and avoid falling victim to them, in addition to other training exercises. We also deliver the training on your behalf, and provide you MSPs with reporting you can share with your clients. This helps drive MSP efficiency while ensuring that training is being delivered according to best practices and that the MSP is able to demonstrate the value of the service.
Overall, the security awareness training program will provide value to both the MSP and its customers. The customers will be able to trust their employees to remove security threats that already exist and avoid falling victim to ones that may appear in the future. The MSP’s security workload will be greatly reduced, as they will spend fewer hours rectifying issues that stem from employee’s lack of cybersecurity knowledge. With the training in place, new employees can focus on proving their value in their role for their new place of work and business can carry on as normal.
Photo: Xan Griffin / Unsplash
