Are Your Employees Your Security Asset or Your Cyberthreat?

Employees are at the heart of your Club’s security. They are the last line of defense against cyberattacks and the first ones to notice when something unusual is happening at work.

However, they can also be your vulnerability. When an employee makes a mistake, like mishandling data, clicking on a malicious link, or giving a cybercriminal their password, they are opening the doors to expensive compliance failures and security nightmares for your Club.

The everyday choices of employees have a tremendous impact on your company’s security and success. That’s why it’s critical to educate them on the risks they might face and how to practice good cyber hygiene to keep your Club compliant and safe from cyberattacks.

Your Club is only secure when everyone knows they are part of the security team.

How can you empower your team to fight cybercrime? Conduct security awareness training that arms your employees with the knowledge they need to avoid pitfalls.

How employee choices impact your Club’s security

Every time someone logs on to your Club’s network, answers an email, or takes work home, they’re taking an action that could have security repercussions whether they mean to or not. The actions that employees take can result in insider risk for your organization.

Human error is responsible for an estimated 82% of security breaches.

Worryingly, 45% of respondents in a HIPAA Journal survey said they are not responsible for maintaining security because they don’t work in the IT department. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. To gain security savvy, employees must realize that maintaining security to fight against cybercrime is everyone’s job.

Especially with the fact that the biggest security risk any organization faces today is phishing. It is the number one cause of a data breach.

Inexperienced employees often fall for phishing lures that entice them to click on malicious links, download suspicious files and email attachments, enter their credentials on a fake site and even correspond with cybercriminals.

Phishing is the risk that employees fail to detect the most.
58% of employees have clicked on at least one malicious URL on their mobile devices.
16% of employees have downloaded malware or riskware apps on their mobile devices.
More than 75% of supply chain attacks include three steps — phishing is one of them.

To sum up, as companies become increasingly dependent on technology to get the job done, employees have more opportunities to take actions that could be harmful. Insider threats have nearly doubled in the past two years both in frequency and cost.

While insider risk cannot be eliminated entirely, you can mitigate it, and security awareness training is an affordable and effective way to do it.

What main cybersecurity threats your Club faces

A new cyberattack is launched every 39 seconds. That’s bad news for organizations that aren’t prepared since only 16% of employees are able to recognize sophisticated threats without security awareness training.

So, what are the main dangers for your Club’s cybersecurity:

Ransomware and malware

Ransomware attacks have surged by 13% to 25% in one year, which is more than the past five years combined. However, ransomware isn’t the only malicious software on the block.

Payment skimmers, cryptominers, Trojans and other nasty malware types can also cause damage to your business. According to a recent study, 70% of malware-related breaches involved ransomware, one of the most common tactics used by capable threat actors in system intrusions and supply chain attacks, irrespective of the size of your business.

How security awareness training helps prevent this

Employees encounter these threats every day but are unlikely to detect them without training — if your employees are adequately trained, aware of threat patterns and know which actions lead to a threat, they will behave responsibly.

Account takeover

A bad actor (an entity that’s attempting to circumvent or breach computer security) taking over a user account is a nightmare for every Club, especially if the bad guys hijack an account that contains sensitive members’ data. Account takeover (ATO) fraud takes a number of forms, including phishing attacks, phone scams, or credential compromises.

How security awareness training helps prevent this

Effective training keeps your users aware of the signs of an ATO as well as the dangers of ATO risks, like phishing and credential compromise, and prevents these attacks from landing.

Business email compromise

In a common business email compromise (BEC) scenario, bad actors target a victim and pose as a company the victim’s organization would do business with to fraudulently obtain money or sensitive data. BEC also endangers a company’s reputation and relationships, with employees encountering this hazard daily.

How security awareness training helps prevent this

Employees who have strong cybersecurity awareness are more likely to be suspicious when they experience unusual behavior when communicating with third-party service providers or suppliers.

Brand impersonating and spoofing

Bad actors will often use cloned or “spoofed” legitimate email messages from a well-known company like Microsoft to send phishing messages that trick unwary readers into taking action to do things like correct a problem, collect a prize, or snag a deal.

How security awareness training helps prevent this

When employees know what to look for, they can easily identify phishing emails and flag them. When your staff is unaware of spoofing emails, they may click on bad links, which could result in a data breach and downtime for your entire company.

Data breach

Employees are bombarded with malicious messages daily. However, getting tricked by a phishing email isn’t the only way employees can cause a data breach. Errors like sending someone the wrong file and other data handling mistakes are just as dangerous.

How security awareness training helps prevent this

Security awareness training arms employees with knowledge that helps them resist threats like phishing while making them more thoughtful in general about how their actions and behaviors impact security.

Remote and hybrid workers

We live in an era where 60% of knowledge workers are working remotely, and 18% have no plans to return to the office. The modern way of working remotely, coupled with greater use of public clouds, highly connected supply chains and cyber-physical systems, exposes your business to new and challenging attack surfaces.

Often, employees think they can get away with risky behavior like writing down passwords or opening suspicious emails when working remotely.

Plus, cybercriminals know that remote workers are more likely to fall for phishing tricks and less likely to report a problem or ask for help if they don’t even know whom to ask.

How security awareness training helps prevent this

Security awareness training makes your remote workforce more aware of why maintaining security matters regardless of where they are. It also teaches them what to do if any problem arises.

Insider risk

Every employee is an insider, and every employee brings a certain degree of risk to the table, whether they intend to or not. A recent study reveals that negligent employees were responsible for 56% of insider threats, while malicious insiders caused 26% of attacks.

How security awareness training helps prevent this

A strong security culture is a major determinant in reducing your Club’s overall risk, and security awareness is the foundation on which it is built. If security is top of mind for everyone, employees make fewer mistakes and notice suspicious behavior faster.

How else security training can help your Club

Maintain compliance with national, local, regional and industry-specific regulations

Data privacy and cybersecurity regulations are tightening in the Club industry, and the price of a compliance failure is high. Security awareness training is required under many data privacy and data handling statutes.

Implementing this training equips your employees to identify potential risks and defend your organization from cyberattacks. By fostering a strong cybersecurity culture across your organization, you can not only minimize insider attacks but also ensure security compliance.

Lower security expenses, like the cost of phishing

Phishing is expensive whether the attack is successful or not. If it hits, you’ve got a potentially devastating incident on your hands. If it doesn’t, the matter still requires investigation. The cost of just dealing with the headache of phishing altogether can be devastating for your Club.

According to the DBIR 2022 report, 82% of breaches involved phishing or social attacks.

Prevent cyberattack disasters

Security awareness training gives companies an edge against cyberattacks by boosting cyber resilience, making them less likely to be crippled by a cyberattack. About 84% of leading organizations cite security awareness training as a key building block of cyber resilience.

How we can help you

Club Support provides the Club industry with managed IT services for over 20 years. We know Clubs’ needs, pains and common problems, and, what’s more important, we know how to solve and prevent them.

We can take care of your cybersecurity and educate your employees, so they become your Club’s security team, not the vulnerability.

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Get in touch to find out how we can help you!