If you want to prevent data breaches, you'll have to make cyber security awareness a top priority, for you and every colleague who ever sent an email.
Awareness is one of those words thrown around more and more though, losing a lot of its meaning and impact in the process.
For instance, did you know more than 10% of people clicked on a phishing email in the past year?
Does that mean a whopping 10% of us are not aware of simple best practices to protect our data, or has awareness become a meaningless word?
If you take data security seriously, odds are you regularly invest in increasing security awareness for your organisation. It never hurts to explain the basics to any new hire, nor is it ever a waste of time to remind all your employees how they can protect their data.
Maybe you even managed to make security a priority for your organisation's management, leaving you with enough resources to have as many awareness trainings as you see fit. Perhaps you're at liberty to throw in unexpected cyber security drills every so often.
The frustrating fact of the matter remains: no matter how much you try to increase awareness, 1 out of every 10 people will click on a phishing email. So if your organisation employs 100 people, that's 10 people where you have to constantly check if their awareness is "switched on".
Awareness, when you take a moment to ponder its meaning, by its very definition is not something anyone can do full-time. Distraction comes easy.
Imagine you're a nurse who spends their days saving people's lives, a lawyer working all through the night to prepare an important case, or a teacher hurrying to get some work done between classes.
It's perfectly understandable for someone who's "aware" of the basic do's and don'ts of safe emailing to still open a phishing email every so often. Cyber security awareness simply takes a backseat when we have other things on our mind, such as our jobs.
To prevent cyber criminals from stealing your data, we'll have to find a way to never switch off our awareness.
Of course no human being could manage, but luckily technology can help us out.
Picture the same nurse, lawyer and teacher mentioned earlier, but now with an email solution that reminds them of what they learned about cyber security at exactly the right moment.
The same way you're only aware of your seatbelt when a car brakes, there's an email solution that switches on awareness right when you need it, regardless of how distracted you may be.
Want to learn how you can count on your employees' awareness, without having to count on your employees?
Click the link below to download our whitepaper on how to prevent data breaches by making sure awareness is always switched on.