Increase in Cybercrime Demands Fresh Attention to Employee Onboarding and Training

Until the massive U.S. Target store credit and debit card data breach in 2013, the lasting impact of cybercrimes was a relatively unknown experience to most consumers, and it wasn’t on the top list of HR onboarding topics either. Flash-forward to today, and cyberattacks, hacking, data breaches and identity theft are household terms, and the need to educate employees about how their actions impact company cybersecurity is greater than ever.

The likelihood of a damaging cyberattack has grown with the role of technology in the business landscape. For every high demand UX developer and software engineer, there is someone else using the same skillsets to hack corporate systems. The question for companies is no longer “Will I be the target of a cyberattack?” but rather “When?” Yahoo learned this the hard way, as did health insurer Anthem Inc., Sony Entertainment, the Democratic National Convention, and even the Internal Revenue Service, to name a few.

Yet, as common as news headlines have become, a recent study conducted by International Data Corp (IDC) found most U.S. companies are underprepared to deal with cybersecurity threats. Even though there are lots of good best practices, they’re only being conducted by a small number of leading-edge firms.

While IT and cybersecurity professionals are experts at protecting networks and devices, and integrating security measures to anticipate a breach, that cannot serve as an organization’s be-all, end-all response. Employee education and training can help minimize cyber vulnerabilities and prepare employees for the event of a breach, in turn helping to protect the organization and its customers.

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