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employees implementing cybersecurity culture within their company to protect their systems and data

How to Build a Cybersecurity Culture and Improve Employee Habits

An often overlooked, yet crucial, part of any cybersecurity strategy is culture. It’s not enough to have the latest and greatest cybersecurity technology if your employees don’t know how to use it or follow best practices. Building and nurturing an environment that shifts focus from cybersecurity as an end goal to part of everyday work life is essential to protecting your business from the inside out.

Employees Are a Liability

When it comes to cybersecurity, your greatest asset–the people–is also your greatest risk. According to a recent IT Security Risks Survey, as many as 49% of businesses worldwide reported some sort of detrimental cyberattack via malware, viruses, or phishing. Of that 49%, over half (53%) were considered due to employee carelessness. This means, to reduce cybersecurity risks in your business, you need to train and educate employees on best practices.

Steps for Building a Cybersecurity Culture

Because employees are such a risk in the cybersecurity world, helping them to understand the importance of being safe, knowledgeable, and hygienic when online is crucial to building your cybersecurity culture. Here are some steps you can take:

Conduct a Culture Assessment

The first step is understanding where you’re at and what needs to be improved. This can be done through interviews, focus groups, or surveys with employees. You’ll want to ask questions about cybersecurity habits, knowledge of company policy, and understanding of best practices.

Implement Backups

Data loss is one of the most common cybersecurity risks businesses face. Make sure you have a plan in place for data backup and recovery in the event of an attack or system failure.

Train Employees in Best Cybersecurity Practices

Provide employees with regular training on cybersecurity topics such as password hygiene, phishing scams, social engineering attacks, and more. Consider making this training mandatory and providing different levels of education based on job function.

Make Cybersecurity a Top-Down Priority

Cybersecurity needs to be a priority for everyone in the organization from management on down. Employees should see that cybersecurity is a priority for the company in order to make it one for themselves.

Reward Good Cyber Hygiene

Encourage employees to practice good cybersecurity habits by implementing rewards or recognition programs. For example, you could give the occasional gift or shout-out to those who change their passwords regularly or participate in training courses. Above all else, make sure that employees feel the value they are providing to the company by being an integral part of your cybersecurity culture.

Keep Open Lines of Communication

Make sure employees feel comfortable reporting any suspicious activity they see and that there are clear channels for doing so. Additionally, keep lines of communication open between departments so everyone is on the same page when it comes to cybersecurity risks and response plans.

Update Your Culture With Envision Consulting

Building a cybersecurity culture can be daunting, but it’s essential to protecting your business from attacks. Envision Consulting has a team of cybersecurity experts who can help assess your current cybersecurity posture, develop training programs, and implement policies and procedures to help keep your business safe. Contact us today to learn more.

Envision Consulting

Envision Consulting

We started Envision Consulting for businesses that share our passion for building long- term and healthy relationships. While we might be technology experts, we’ve always known that trust, reliability and looking after a client’s best interest are paramount to succeeding in business. But in 2001 and to this day, there were few managed IT providers available that embodied our customer-centric values. There were countless support companies more interested in reacting to issues than paving the road forward for clients, making it far too difficult to build long-term relationships. We felt a strong pull to make something different, and we did.