Data leakage, according to Ponemon survey, could cost a company millions or even trillions of cash. As cited in the survey, businesses suffer £4,180/£9,470 annually due to data or assets breaches, with phishing attacks account for 80 percent of businesses loss. Among other countries, cyberattacks are found to commonly happen in these nine countries, including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the US. The survey showed that the US and German companies experience a greater loss with $277 or less per compromised records.   

The survey clearly informs us that cyber-attacks are rampant everywhere and companies can do something about it. Businesses can create robust talent security in order to prevent the accident from happening. As cited in Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2019, businesses are doing more attempts to save their company from data breach. Cyber Security survey showed that organisations have updated their senior management on action to cybersecurity at least once a quarter. Firms are also implementing controls in all technical areas listed under the Government’s Cyber Essentials scheme. 

See also: Zero Trust to Reinvent Security Strategy in Business

While businesses have identified breaches robustly than ever before, they remain in dealing with cyber attacks, resulting in millions of data and/or profit loss. The most common types of these attacks are phishing, viruses, spyware or malware (including ransomware), and impersonating an organisation in emails or online. It suggested that businesses are not doing really well in securing their cyber workplace and/or company’s data. In addition, companies might also forget to implement basic protocol such as login and logout procedure that greater the chance of cyber threat to steal company’s data. 

If companies cannot implement the basic protocol in a better way, even a robust technology or a top cyber talent will be less useful.  

The state of login and logout procedure

One of the oldest security forms, login and logout procedure could risk your data. Employees, especially technical employees and human resources, often access company data from their laptop or handphone. However, you might be surprised that most employees do not bother to log out of their computer when leaving for lunch. Some employees might even never log out their company account from their phones, leaving their data unguarded on a daily basis. 

According to survey on cyberattack, screen or visual hacking commonly happens globally. In some states, the survey on cyberattack found that sensitive information was successfully captured in 91 percent of visual hacking. Meanwhile, 52 percent of sensitive information captured during the experiments came from employee computer screens. Employees often take or leave notes about important access such as login information and stores it on their computers. To make it worse, some might make notes and leave it on obvious locations such as a desk or phone. It will greater the chance of cybercriminals to import data from their computer. Worse, attackers might steal a laptop or phone from your employees and take important data from it.   

Action to take

While businesses are aware of these issues and have improved their data security, basic understanding must never be left behind. Companies should create awareness amongst their employees on protecting data. Regular reminder of small actions such as logging out before turning off the computer, locking up the office before leaving, or avoiding to take save important notes in an obvious place and ongoing training will also be needed to create better login and log out behaviour.

“Understanding the facts of small situation is only the first step. As an employer, you need to work continuously in order to create a security-conscious work environment.” – Creekmore Marketing

Read also: The Importance of Cyber-Security in Cyber-Workplace: Conversation with Parvinder Walia