The cybersecurity landscape is evolving daily. Yep, it sure keeps us on our toes here at Vala Secure!
To prevent their organizations from becoming the next headline, more and more businesses are investing in partnerships with cybersecurity pros. They see the value in paying trusted professionals to exploit their networks in order to ensure they’re as protected as possible.
Could these cybersecurity risks be exposing your organization to hackers?
While there are a plethora of cybersecurity risks and hackers threatening the security of organizations across the globe every day, some of the biggest cybersecurity risks are actually nearby. And they’re also very avoidable. Here are three of the biggest cybersecurity risks you’ve never considered (along with ways to avoid them):
1. Your kids.
Okay, I’m not insinuating your children are insidious hackers charming their way into your lives for the purpose of exploiting your organizations 🤣.
But, the fact is that your kids can pose a real threat to the security of your devices and ultimately, your organization. It happens to many parents at night or on the weekends. Our kids want to hop on our laptops to check social media or email, or to do some homework. This could be a laptop owned by your employer, or it could be a personal laptop where you also conduct work. This action seems innocent enough, and is incredibly common.
When your kids are doing their work on your laptop, they are also potentially exposing your laptop (and everything on it, including files, passwords, and more) to hackers. This not only puts your personal information at risk, but can pose a serious threat to your organization.
Kids may innocently click a phishing email, download a file from an unknown source or stream music from an out-of-date player or browser. All of these common online activities can be exploited by hackers.
2. The cleaning crew.
It bears repeating: We are not accusing your cleaning crew of “working” as hackers in their spare time! But, any time we regularly invite outside individuals into our organization, we are potentially opening ourselves up to risk.
Specifically, your cleaning crew may throw away paper that contains confidential information. Or, they may connect to your wifi and download or click a nefarious link or file. You may think it makes sense to provide the cleaning crew with access to your network since they are working in your building, but that can often serve as a vulnerability.
3. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
Many organizations have a BYOD policy nowadays. With workers more connected to the office than ever and personally using multiple devices for work, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, it became a necessity.
But, the same mistakes that can happen with your kids accessing your work laptop are prevalent on your personal devices. Personal devices are, in many cases, inherently less secure than many work devices.
There are a myriad of ways hackers can harm your organization through personal devices. One common way is through malicious apps from the Google Play store (most commonly) or even the Apple App Store (less commonly). Work network passwords and other confidential material can often be accessed (and used) by hackers through employee devices.
We can help you mitigate risk and breathe easy.
The purpose of this blog wasn’t to overwhelm or scare you, but to help you make informed decisions to protect your business.
At Vala Secure, we conduct testing to identify these and many other vulnerabilities in your organization, then make suggestions for how to mitigate them. We’re a trusted partner here to help you breathe easy and focus on your business, without worrying.
