Cyber security awareness is a topic that for most users and even companies, is “unnecessary” but, the amount of risks that can be avoided by simply maintaining a high awareness in employees or, even at a personal level, are enormous, which is why, in this article we will discuss some important points to demonstrate the importance of cybersecurity awareness and how it can be one of the most effective security measures today to further secure information.
Is it really important?
I guess, if you read the first paragraph you will understand that the answer is a resounding YES, especially now that most jobs are remote and, with the growing demand for users connected to the network of networks (internet compa, internet), it is clear that this vast majority of users do not know anything about computers and much less about cybersecurity, maybe they can think like “if the device is slow, it is a virus” and, added to this huge lack of knowledge, We can add the enormous misinformation that exists, from saying that a hacker is a cybercriminal to claiming that every malware that exists is a virus, bieeeeeenvenido a DocTops, well no, let’s continue, it is clear that we are in an era where most of the population uses devices to interconnect between them but a large percentage of that population does not know the basic security measures to improve the security of their information during these legitimate connections with other users.
The simple fact of, for example, being able to detect the legitimacy of an email message before performing any action, can determine whether a cybercriminal succeeds in his attack or not, and it is clear that what we are always looking for is that cybercriminals do not get away with it and protect our information to the maximum, so, cybersecurity awareness, in my opinion, should be a knowledge to be shared to anyone who makes use of the Internet.
Official data
Let us now look at official data on the great importance of cybersecurity awareness. According to the following study conducted by ProofPoint it could be determined that:
- At a university in the northwestern United States of America, phishing attacks were reduced by up to 90%.
- In one city government employees, the click rate was reduced by up to 80% over the course of a year (obviously it is not that they used a mouse less, we are talking about clicks to possibly malicious links).
- Over a 2-year period, one financial institution reported up to a 95% reduction in malware.
These are just a few examples, so at least I hope you understand that cybersecurity awareness can be a very effective security measure because there is no point in spending thousands of dollars on physical or logical assets to improve security in a company if employees are not trained and a cybercriminal compromises their credentials through, for example, a phishing attack using social engineering techniques.
I’m not saying that you should only focus on awareness, not at all, there must be a balance of both fully trained and aware employees in cybersecurity, and security elements that can respond to malicious actions that employees may overlook, So, by having both IT assets and employees working to maintain and improve information security, the company will become more secure from potential cybercriminals, which is ultimately what matters, to protect information at all costs, and this also applies at the domestic level.
Ways to improve cybersecurity awareness.
- First, the most basic thing, learn from Coldd Security courses.
- Keep a close eye on your accounts, the services you sign up for may suffer a data breach, periodically check if your credentials have been compromised and act to ensure the maximum security of your information.
- Use common sense and online tools to detect possible phishing messages and NEVER download or access any resource without first checking the legitimacy of the message.
- Use secure and DIFFERENT passwords for each service, if you cannot remember each password, use a password manager.
- Remember that the “little green padlock” that appears when a site is catalogued by the browser as “secure” does not have to be, it only indicates that the site works with the HTTPS protocol because there is a TLS certificate installed (you may know it as SSL certificate, but nowadays it is TLS, SSL is literally obsolete).
- Always scan files or web pages before accessing them.
Don’t connect to public Wi-Fi networks, you don’t get anything good from there and you expose your information to many risks. - If you are looking for more privacy when browsing or you are simply connected to a public Wi-Fi network (which I don’t understand why you would do that), use a VPN that encrypts the information and that, obviously, is from a reliable provider.
- Use your common sense, I repeat it a lot, but common sense is the least common of the senses, use it more and protect your information.
