FINAL WORD
Building a human firewall to address insider threats
Creating a strong cybersecurity culture is paramount to the smooth running of a company ’ s operations , particularly as attacks become more advanced . Renee Tarun , Deputy CISO / Vice President Information Security , Fortinet , discusses the steps for how IT leaders can establish a baseline for good cyberhygiene and ensure their employees take cybersecurity seriously .
During the first half of 2020 , the FortiGuard Labs team found that evolving work environments and a greater reliance on personal devices presented new opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit enterprise networks . One method that threat actors have heavily relied on as of late is the creation of legitimate-looking phishing emails that can be used to tailor and launch attacks with ease . While this is not a new tactic by any means , these types of social engineering attacks have only grown more sophisticated and damaging as employees continue to work remotely and remain isolated from their teams .
The need to mitigate insider threat risk
Whether they know it or not , employees can pose a significant risk to the security of enterprise networks and the data they hold . Considering that 68 % of organizations feel moderate to extremely vulnerable to insider attacks , as noted in a recent study , it ’ s clear just how significant this issue is . In addition to those that are considered malicious insiders , these threats can also be attributed to the group known as the “ accidental insiders ”.
According to this same study , security teams view falling victim to phishing attacks ( 38 %) as the top cause for accidental insider threats , followed by spear phishing ( 21 %), poor passwords ( 16 %) and browsing of suspicious websites ( 7 %). In other words , opening the door for cybercriminals can be as simple as clicking on a link or
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